tense

tense¹ (tɛns)

—*adj*
1.	stretched or stressed tightly; taut or rigid
2.	under mental or emotional strain
3.	producing mental or emotional strain: a tense day
4.	Compare lax (of a speech sound) pronounced with considerable muscular effort and having relatively precise accuracy of articulation and considerable duration: in English the vowel () in ``beam'' is tense

—vb
5.	(often foll by up) to make or become tense

[C17: from Latin tensus taut, from tendere to stretch]

'tensely¹

—*adv*

'tenseness¹

—n

tense² (tɛns)

—n
	grammar a category of the verb or verbal inflections, such as present, past, and future, that expresses the temporal relations between what is reported in a sentence and the time of its utterance

[C14: from Old French tens time, from Latin tempus]

'tenseless²

—*adj*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

tense

"stretched tight," 1670, from L. tensus, pp. of tendere "to stretch" (see tenet). Sense of "in a state of nervous tension" is first recorded 1821. The verb meaning "to make tense" is from 1676; intrans. sense of "to become tense" (often tense up) is recorded from 1946.

tense

"form of a verb showing time of an action or state," early 14c., tens "time," also "tense of a verb" (late 14c.), from O.Fr. tens "time" (11c.), from L. tempus (see temporal).

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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American Heritage

Cultural Dictionary

tense definition

An inflectional (see inflection) form of verbs; it expresses the time at which the action described by the verb takes place. The major tenses are past, present, and future. The verb in “I sing” is in the present tense; in “I sang,” past tense; in “I will sing,” future tense. Other tenses are the present perfect (“I have sung”), the past perfect (“I had sung”), and the future perfect (“I will have sung”).

Slang Dictionary

tense

adj. Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece of code often got that way because it was highly bummed, but sometimes it was just based on a great idea. A comment in a clever routine by Mike Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at CMU: "This routine is so tense it will bring tears to your eyes." A tense programmer is one who produces tense code.

Jargon
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FOLDOC

Computing Dictionary

tense definition

Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece of code often got that way because it was highly bummed, but sometimes it was just based on a great idea. A comment in a clever routine by Mike Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at CMU: "This routine is so tense it will bring tears to your eyes." A tense programmer is one who produces tense code.
[Jargon File]

Example sentences

The write-ups also referred to subjects in the past tense.

Placating protesting workers may help calm a tense situation.

Throughout this process our committee was able to see each candidate in action,

making decisions in a present-tense scenario.

They predict the next verb to fall into line will be wed, the past tense of

which will regularize from wed to wedded.

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blew bound done future future perfect hypertense

Matching Quote

"It is important to note that multiculturalism does not share the postmodernist stance. Its passions are political; its assumptions empirical; its conception of identities visceral. For it, there is no doubting that history is something that happened and that those happenings have left their mark within our collective consciousness. History for multiculturalists is not a succession of dissolving texts, but a tense tangle of past actions that have reshaped the landscape, distributed the nation's wealth, established boundaries, engendered prejudices, and unleashed energies."

-Joyce Appleby