noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The characteristic of being tense. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   (psychology) a state of mental or emotional strain or suspense wordnet
3. 3
   A particular vowel or consonant quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. countable, uncountable
4. 4
   the physical condition of being stretched or strained wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

electricityheatnervous tensionpressurerenitencyrigidity

Etymology

From tense + -ness.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.