Tent

How to spell tent

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce tent

What does tent mean?

1. nounA portable shelter made of fabric stretched over poles, used for camping or outdoor events.

Tent in a sentence

• They pitched the tent beside the river before nightfall.

• Rain soaked through the old canvas tent during the storm.

Where does tent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word tent comes from the Old French tente, which in turn derived from the Latin verb tendere, meaning 'to stretch'. The idea is wonderfully literal: a tent is quite simply a length of cloth stretched out and held up over poles and ropes. English took the word in during the 1200s and 1300s, when canvas shelters were essential for travelling armies and royal hunting parties. The same tendere root stretches into a whole family of English words, including 'tension', 'extend', and 'tendon', all of which carry that sense of pulling or stretching something taut. Because the spelling is short and phonetic, it has stayed remarkably stable across the centuries.

How the word is built

• tent (from Latin tendere, to stretch)