What does "laconic" mean?

[Jim Parish]

Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> This reminds me of "willy-nilly."  When I encounter it, it almost always
> seems to mean "recklessly."  This has been true all my life.  But that
> meaning does not appear in OED, whose citations end in 1898.

My dictionary - Webster's Third New International - gives the traditional
"under compulsion" definition in the main body (which seems to date
from 1961), but in the Addenda (which was assembled in stages
between 1966 and 1993) gives "in a haphazard or spontaneous
manner". No dated citations, though.

Jim Parish