tense
noun · adjective · verb
Simple meaning
The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
tehnsIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtɛns
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
linguisticsuncountable
The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists.
adjective
Showing signs of stress or strain; not relaxed.
Characterized by strain (on the nerves, emotions, etc).
Taut or rigid; stretched tight
Pulled taut, without any slack.
verb
transitive
To make tense.
Become tense, nervous, or uneasy
“He tensed up when he saw his opponent enter the room.”
Become stretched or tense or taut
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Taut or rigid; stretched tight
Used this way, tense is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- unrelaxed , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use tense
- “He tensed up when he saw his opponent enter the room.”verb
- “He got a phone call from his lawyer that tensed him up.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A generalization of the concept of a vector.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A system of tenses used in a particular language.
Become tense, nervous, or uneasy.
A tense of verbs used in describing action that is on-going.
A perfective tense used to express action completed in the past.
A progressive tense used to describe on-going action in the past.
A verb tense that expresses actions or states in the past.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A small muscle in the middle ear that tenses to protect the eardrum.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: showing signs of stress or strain
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.