Tense

How to spell tense

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tense

What does tense mean?

1. adjectiveStrained tight, or feeling and showing nervous anxiety.
2. verbTo tighten or become rigid, especially the muscles.
3. nounA verb form that shows the time of an action, such as past, present, or future.

Tense in a sentence

• adjective

  The negotiations grew tense as the deadline approached.

• verb

  She would tense her jaw whenever the topic came up.

• noun

  The essay slips awkwardly from one tense to another.

• adjective

  His shoulders felt tense after a long day at the desk.

• verb

  Try not to tense your muscles during the massage.

• noun

  Learning the correct tense is a key part of studying any language.

Where does tense come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word actually carries two separate stories under one spelling. The adjective and verb come from the Latin tensus, the past participle of tendere, which literally meant 'to stretch'. A muscle drawn tight or a rope pulled taut is therefore 'stretched', and from that physical image English took the figurative sense of a person or atmosphere that is strained and anxious. The grammatical noun, however, took a different path: it descends from the Latin tempus, meaning 'time', which travelled through Old French as tens before settling as 'tense', the term for the time a verb refers to. The two words ended up spelled identically by coincidence, and the shared tendere root also gave us 'tension', 'tendon', and 'extend', all of which involve stretching or straining.

How the word is built

• tens- (from Latin tensus, stretched)
• -e