tenterhooks
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Is it why markets are rocking, why oil shipments are cut back from the Strait of Hormuz, why the world hangs on tenterhooks of suspense over what happens next?
From Slate • Mar. 4, 2026
Murase said she felt "immense joy" at her gold but admitted she had been on tenterhooks until her final run.
From Barron's • Feb. 9, 2026
As a way to find joy, she said, in a time when news and world events have us all on tenterhooks.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 26, 2025
The 77th Primetime Emmy Awards are mere days away and, as someone who regularly writes about them, I’m trying to locate my tenterhooks, but it’s a bit tough this year.
From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 10, 2025
For a while we were indignant because no one from the office came upstairs the entire morning; Mr. Kleiman left us on tenterhooks until eleven-thirty.
From "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
