• IPA: /ˈtɹɛnʃənt/

trenchant

1. (obsolete) fit#Verb|Fitted to trench#Verb|trench or cut#Verb|cut; gutting#Adjective|gutting; sharp#Adjective|sharp.
   • 1663, Samuel Butler, Hudibras, part 1, canto 1:

     The trenchant blade, Toledo trusty, / For want of fighting was grown rusty, / And ate into itself, for lack / Of somebody to hew and hack.

2. (figuratively) keen#Adjective|Keen; biting#Adjective|biting; vigorously articulate and effective; severe.

   trenchant wit

   • 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, […], OCLC 1042815524 ↗, part I, pages 210–211 ↗:

     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.

   • 2011, Jay A. Gertzman, Bookleggers and Smuthounds: The Trade in Erotica, 1920-1940

     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.

• French: tranchant
• German: schneidend
• Portuguese: cortante, afiado
• Russian: о́стрый

• German: treffsicher, prägnant, beißend, pointiert, scharf, stechend
• Portuguese: mordaz, incisivo
• Russian: ко́лкий