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Tense

//tɛns// adj, noun, verb

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Showing signs of stress or strain; not relaxed.

    "You need to relax, all this overtime and stress is making you tense."

  2. 2
    Characterized by strain (on the nerves, emotions, etc). (Compare charged.)

    "Chi stops, but her eyes continue to pierce right through me and into Karima. A tense moment later, she drops her eyes back to the terminal and scans the data once more. The showdown is over, at least for the moment."

  3. 3
    Pulled taut, without any slack.
  4. 4
    Produced with relative constriction of the vocal tract.
Adjective
  1. 1
    taut or rigid; stretched tight wordnet
  2. 2
    pronounced with relatively tense tongue muscles (e.g., the vowel sound in ‘beat’) wordnet
  3. 3
    in or of a state of physical or nervous tension wordnet
Noun
  1. 1
    The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists. uncountable

    "Dyirbal verbs are not inflected for tense."

  2. 2
    a grammatical category of verbs used to express distinctions of time wordnet
  3. 3
    An inflected form of a verb that indicates tense. countable

    "English only has a past tense and a non-past tense; it has no future tense."

  4. 4
    A grammatical aspect. countable, proscribed
  5. 5
    A verb form or construction indicating a combination of tense, aspect, and mood. countable, proscribed

    "The "simple present" tense in English can have several meanings."

Verb
  1. 1
    To apply a tense to. transitive

    "tensing a verb"

  2. 2
    To make tense. transitive
  3. 3
    cause to be tense and uneasy or nervous or anxious wordnet
  4. 4
    To become tense. intransitive

    "The driver and the man shouted angrily at each other and I tensed, ready for violence. But soon everyone in the tap-tap joined in, capping remarks, joking, telling chicken and goat stories."

  5. 5
    become tense, nervous, or uneasy wordnet
Show 2 more definitions
  1. 6
    increase the tension on wordnet
  2. 7
    become stretched or tense or taut wordnet

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English tens, from Old French tens (modern French temps), from Latin tempus. Doublet of tempo and tempus.

Etymology 2

From Middle English tens, from Old French tens (modern French temps), from Latin tempus. Doublet of tempo and tempus.

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Latin tēnsus, one form of the past participle of tendō (“stretch”).

Etymology 4

Borrowed from Latin tēnsus, one form of the past participle of tendō (“stretch”).

See also for "tense"

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