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Fine Dictionary

tense

tɛns
WordNet
Cartoon of a man (our descendant) who, when reading the history of the present tense, has to cry and laugh, 1796. At the top two medallions with Heraclitus and Democritus.
Cartoon of a man (our descendant) who, when reading the history of the present tense, has to cry and laugh, 1796. At the top two medallions with Heraclitus and Democritus.
  1. (adj) tense
    taut or rigid; stretched tight "tense piano strings"
  2. (adj) tense
    pronounced with relatively tense tongue muscles (e.g., the vowel sound in `beat')
  3. (adj) tense
    in or of a state of physical or nervous tension
  4. (v) tense
    cause to be tense and uneasy or nervous or anxious "he got a phone call from his lawyer that tensed him up"
  5. (v) tense
    become tense, nervous, or uneasy "He tensed up when he saw his opponent enter the room"
  6. (v) tense
    increase the tension on "alternately relax and tense your calf muscle","tense the rope manually before tensing the spring"
  7. (v) tense
    become stretched or tense or taut "the bodybuilder's neck muscles tensed"," "the rope strained when the weight was attached"
  8. (n) tense
    a grammatical category of verbs used to express distinctions of time
Illustrations
The walls of Oudewater in the present tense, 1876. Left the ramparts, right the water, behind it the church.
The walls of Oudewater in the present tense, 1876. Left the ramparts, right the water, behind it the church.
Venus and Adonis partially undressed in a landscape. Amor stands with a tense bow next to Venus.
Venus and Adonis partially undressed in a landscape. Amor stands with a tense bow next to Venus.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
  1. Tense
    Stretched tightly; strained to stiffness; rigid; not lax; as, a tense fiber. "The temples were sunk, her forehead was tense , and a fatal paleness was upon her."
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
  1. (n) tense
    Time. See temps.
  2. (n) tense
    In grammar: Time.
  3. (n) tense
    One of the forms, or sets of forms, which a verb takes in order to indicate the time of action or of that which is affirmed: extended also to forms indicating the nature of the action as continued, completed, and the like. In English this is effected either by internal vowel change, as in sing, sang, lead, led; by terminational inflection, as in love, loved; or, in verb-phrases, by means of auxiliary words, as in did love, have loved, will love.
  4. tense
    Being in a state of tension; stretched until tight; strained to stiffness; rigid; not lax: often used figuratively.
  5. tense
    To make tense or taut.
Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
  1. (n) Tense
    tens time in grammar, the form of a verb to indicate the time of the action.
  2. (adj) Tense
    tens strained to stiffness: rigid
Quotations
Rainer Maria Rilke
Who's not sat tense before his own heart's curtain.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Friedrich Nietzsche
Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Past tense means you used to be nervous.
Source Unknown
George Ade
Nothing is improbable until it moves into past tense.
George Ade
Of the mental hazards, being scared is the worst. When you get scared, you get tense.
Sam Snead
Camille Paglia
Pornography is human imagination in tense theatrical action; its violations are a protest against the violations of our freedom by nature.
Camille Paglia
Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary OF. tens, properly, time, F. temps, time, tense. See Temporal of time, and cf. Thing

Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary L. tensus, pa.p. of tendĕre, to stretch.

Usage in the news

It's true the missile crisis was full of tense moments. timesleader.com

The tense relationship with a major trade partner. chicagotribune.com

Sierra Leone tense ahead of 'extremely delicate ' election Saturday. thestar.com

Turkey said Sunday that it had scrambled fighter jets along its increasingly tense border with Syria after Syrian helicopters were detected close to the two nations' long frontier. latimes.com

A lizard, an unhinged roommate and a kidnapped single mom make up Diana Wagman's tense 'The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets.'. latimes.com

But if you want something sharp and tense, "You Don't Want to Know" is a book you don't want to read. clermontsun.com

The race for mayor is getting tense. foxillinois.com

Election Day is here and the race for mayor is getting tense. foxillinois.com

Despite a tense campaign, US Rep Keith Ellison easily won re-election to represent the 5th Congressional District in Congress. monticellotimes.com

Sierra Leone tense ahead of ' extremely delicate' election Saturday. thestar.com

El Paso,TX — There were some tense moments Wendesday afternoon after an apartment complex caught fire. ktsm.com

The Selectboard, Town Manager Barbara Sondag and the town's department heads, battled through a detailed, and sometimes tense, four hour meeting Saturday morning to try to reduce the proposed fiscal year 2014 budget. reformer.com

Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper Chris Kirkland was hit in the face and then shoved to the ground by a Leeds United fan during a tense 1-1 draw at Hillsborough on Friday night. socceramerica.com

Y ou didn't need to listen to the words to know how tense things have become at the Scott County Courthouse. startribune.com

In "The Heiress," which opens on Broadway next month, the Sloper household is as tense as it is beautifully furnished. nj.com

Usage in scientific papers

In this paper we have discussed a logic-based approach to modeling temporal information, and in particular, information about tense and aspect.
Generating models for temporal representations

On the inference side we have provided a first-order theory which, although inspired by work on English, seems general enough to provide analyses of tense and aspect in other languages.
Generating models for temporal representations

We show that any transversally complete Riemannian foliation F of dimension one on any possibly non-compact manifold M is tense; namely, (M , F ) admits a Riemannian metric such that the mean curvature form of F is basic.
Tenseness of Riemannian flows

This is a partial generalization of a result of Dom´ınguez, which says that any Riemannian foliation on any compact manifold is tense.
Tenseness of Riemannian flows

Any Riemannian foliation on a closed manifold is tense.
Tenseness of Riemannian flows

Usage in literature

In the silence that followed, Gaddon's tense breathing was the only sound. "The Monster" by S. M. Tenneshaw

So the Bunch returned tensely to Jarviston, with more time to sweat out. "The Planet Strappers" by Raymond Zinke Gallun

Long before the court began its sitting, the air was hot and tense with eager curiosity. "The Day of Judgment" by Joseph Hocking

When he resumed his voice was pitched lower, but was very tense. "The Fire People" by Ray Cummings

With every muscle tense they whirled the handles up and down like human engines. "The Young Railroaders" by Francis Lovell Coombs

Only the boy, peering through the knothole, was tense and vibrant. "Frank of Freedom Hill" by Samuel A. Derieux

It carried, too, to the other side of the street, and the girl saw faces grow suddenly tense; noted the stiffening of bodies. "'Firebrand' Trevison" by Charles Alden Seltzer

Alan waited tensely while MacIntosh crossed the room again, drew out the contents of the tube, and scanned them. "Starman's Quest" by Robert Silverberg

Walking fast, tense and ready to spring at all times, their eyes never still for an instant. "Deathworld" by Harry Harrison

ON TENSES IN GENERAL. "A Handbook of the English Language" by Robert Gordon Latham

Usage in poetry
Nearer and ever nearer….
My body tired but tense
Hovers 'twixt vague pleasure
And tremulous confidence.
Burning with heat and cold
In April's tender weather
I let my tense hands hold
All they could gather of love.
Still the strength his fathers knew
(Dauntless when the foe they fac'd)
Vein and muscle bounded through,
Tense his Helot sinews brac'd.
For every line is tense with truth,
There's hope and joy on every page;
A cheer, a clarion call to Youth,
A hymn, a comforter to Age:
All's there that I was meant to be,
My part divine, the God in me.
You are all that is lovely and light,
Aziza whom I adore,
And, waking, after the night,
I am weary with dreams of you.
Every nerve in my heart is tense and sore
As I rise to another morning apart from you.
Time was, when first that voice I heard,
Despite my close and tense endeavour,
When many an important word
Was lost and gone forever;
Though, unlike others at the play,
I never whispered: "wha'd'd she say?"