tense
1stretched tight, as a cord, fiber, etc.; drawn taut; rigid.
in a state of mental or nervous strain; high-strung; taut: a tense person.
characterized by a strain upon the nerves or feelings: a tense moment.
Phonetics. pronounced with relatively tense tongue muscles; narrow. : Compare lax1 (def. 7).
to make or become tense.
Origin of tense
1Other words from tense
- tensely, adverb
- tenseness, noun
- un·tens·ing, adjective
Words Nearby tense
Other definitions for tense (2 of 2)
a category of verbal inflection that serves chiefly to specify the time of the action or state expressed by the verb.
a set of such categories or constructions in a particular language.
the time, as past, present, or future, expressed by such a category.
such categories or constructions, or their meanings collectively.
Origin of tense
2Other words from tense
- tenseless, adjective
- tense·less·ly, adverb
- tense·less·ness, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use tense in a sentence
Turkish has an inferential tense marked by the suffix -miş, which you have to add to verbs whenever you are talking about something you did not personally see or something that you doubt.
The true love story in Elif Batuman’s The Idiot is a love affair with language | Constance Grady | September 11, 2020 | VoxLandau seemed incredibly nice, but I found the mood strangely tense.
‘The Dream Architects’: Inside the making of gaming’s biggest franchises | Rachel King | September 1, 2020 | FortuneElections are always tense, but this year was something different.
For Election Administrators, Death Threats Have Become Part of the Job | by Jessica Huseman | August 21, 2020 | ProPublicaA tense advertising landscape in fourth quarter 2019 for Dow Jones — which includes The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s — saw its digital advertising revenue tumble by 7%.
‘It’s less dire than it seemed to be’: How The Wall Street Journal’s digital ads business has weathered the downturn | Lucinda Southern | August 20, 2020 | DigidayIn this case, it appears those processes have failed, and at a moment when relations between China and India – both nuclear armed states – are already tense.
China And India’s Deadly Himalayan Clash Is A Big Test For Modi. And A Big Concern For The World | LGBTQ-Editor | June 19, 2020 | No Straight News
The gym—a fragile collective of human ecology at the best of times—has suddenly become even more tense.
A tense commute to work in Houston will start to resemble a tense commute in Boston or New York City.
Elisabetta Piqué, who knew Bergoglio well as a cardinal, writes in the present tense as if to convey real time passing.
I covered New York politics for 15 years, and I saw some awfully tense moments between the police and Democratic politicians.
The NY Police Union’s Vile War with Mayor De Blasio | Michael Tomasky | December 21, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTSince Nestdrop continues to do so as of this writing, they wager a tense gamble that the odds will be in their favor.
Days Are Numbered for Nestdrop, LA’s ‘Uber for Weed’ | Justin Hampton | December 6, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThen, as the atmosphere of the room surged back, tense with vitality, her mind leapt forward in welcome.
Uncanny Tales | VariousHe crouched, nerves and muscles tense, controled in spite of the torturous cloud of scalding vapor that pressed close to him.
The two men eyed one another for a moment of tense silence, and marked suspicion.
A faint click reaches my tense ear, the streaming lightning burns into my face.
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist | Alexander BerkmanWill you tell us more about it, please, she whispered in a strange, tense voice; its soso difficult to understand.
Those Dale Girls | Frank Weston Carruth
British Dictionary definitions for tense (1 of 2)
/ (tɛns) /
stretched or stressed tightly; taut or rigid
under mental or emotional strain
producing mental or emotional strain: a tense day
(of a speech sound) pronounced with considerable muscular effort and having relatively precise accuracy of articulation and considerable duration: in English the vowel ( iː ) in ``beam'' is tense Compare lax (def. 4)
(often foll by up) to make or become tense
Origin of tense
1Derived forms of tense
- tensely, adverb
- tenseness, noun
British Dictionary definitions for tense (2 of 2)
/ (tɛns) /
grammar a category of the verb or verbal inflections, such as present, past, and future, that expresses the temporal relations between what is reported in a sentence and the time of its utterance
Origin of tense
2Derived forms of tense
- tenseless, adjective
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for tense
An inflectional (see inflection) form of verbs; it expresses the time at which the action described by the verb takes place. The major tenses are past, present, and future. The verb in “I sing” is in the present tense; in “I sang,” past tense; in “I will sing,” future tense. Other tenses are the present perfect (“I have sung”), the past perfect (“I had sung”), and the future perfect (“I will have sung”).
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
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