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- Dictionarytense/tɛns/
adjective
- 1. (especially of a muscle) stretched tight or rigid: "she tried to relax her tense muscles" Similar Opposite
- 2. unable to relax because of nervousness, anxiety, or stimulation: "he was tense with excitement"
verb
- 1. become tense, typically through anxiety or nervousness: "her body tensed up"
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nervous and worried and unable to relax: She was very tense as she waited for the interview. B2. If a situation is tense, it causes feelings of worry or nervousness: There were some tense moments in the second half of the game. More examples. SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases. tense adjective (STRETCHED)
1. : stretched tight : made taut : rigid. tense muscles. 2. a. : feeling or showing nervous tension. a tense smile. b. : marked by strain or suspense. a tense thriller. 3. : produced with the muscles involved in a relatively tense state. the vowels \ē\ and \ü\ in contrast with the vowels \i\ and \u̇\ are tense. tensely adverb. tenseness noun.
Define tense: In grammar, the definition of tense is a verb’s quality that shows time in which an act, state, or condition occurs or occurred. In summary, there are three tense groups in English which include past, present, and future. The past expresses events that have ended.
noun. a category of verbal inflection that serves chiefly to specify the time of the action or state expressed by the verb. a set of such categories or constructions in a particular language. the time, as past, present, or future, expressed by such a category.
When something's stretched tight, it's tense. A rope can be tense. So can a muscle. When a person's tense, they're anxious.
Tenses refer to different forms of a verb or verb phrase. We use different tenses to talk or write about different times. For example, we usually use present tense verb forms to talk about states, events or actions that happen or are happening in the present time.
May 10, 2023 · Verb tenses are changes or additions to verbs to show when the action took place: in the past, present, or future. The phrase verb tense is also used for grammatical aspects, which add more details about the duration or time an action takes.
A tense situation or period of time is one that makes people anxious, because they do not know what is going to happen next. This gesture of goodwill did little to improve the tense atmosphere at the talks. After three very tense weeks he phoned again. There was a tense silence.
Tense is a verb-based method used to indicate the time, and sometimes the continuation or completeness, of an action or state in relation to the time of speaking.
Tense, in grammar, a verbal category relating the time of a narrated event to the time of the speech event. In many languages the concept of time is expressed not by the verb but by other parts of speech (temporal adverbials or even nouns, for example).
