Tighten

//ˈtaɪ.tən// verb

verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To make tighter. transitive

    "Please tighten that screw a quarter-turn."

  2. 2
    narrow or limit wordnet
  3. 3
    To become tighter. intransitive

    "That joint is tightening as the wood dries."

  4. 4
    severely restrict in scope or extent wordnet
  5. 5
    To make money harder to borrow or obtain.

    "If the government doesn't tighten the money supply, inflation is certain to be harsh."

Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    become tight or tighter wordnet
  2. 7
    To raise short-term interest rates.

    "The Fed is expected to tighten by a quarter-point."

  3. 8
    make tight or tighter wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
stiffenaffixanchorannexattachback

Example

More examples

"To make our house payments, we're going to have to tighten our belts."

Etymology

Synchronically equivalent to tight + -en, but actually derived from Middle English tighten, from Old English tyhtan, thus originally unrelated to tight (Old English *þiht).

Related phrases

belt-tightentighten downtighten one's belttighten the purse stringstighten up

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