The AI-powered English dictionary
comparative more trenchant, superlative most trenchant
(obsolete) Fitted to trench or cut; gutting; sharp. quotations
The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, / For want of fighting was grown rusty, / And ate into itself, for lack / Of somebody to hew and hack.
1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 1
(figuratively) Keen; biting; vigorously articulate and effective; severe. quotations examples
His eyes, of the usual blue, were perhaps remarkably cold, and he certainly could make his glance fall on one as trenchant and heavy as an axe.
1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, pages 210–211
His trenchant criticisms of the Church's repression […] include a discussion of the considerable 1938 success of the fledgling NODL in getting magazines removed from various points of sale.
2011, Jay A. Gertzman, Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940