tense

1. 1.

   become stretched or tense or taut

   “the bodybuilder's neck muscles tensed”

   “the rope strained when the weight was attached”

   Synonymsstrain

   Broadertighten
2. 2.

   increase the tension on

   “alternately relax and tense your calf muscle”

   “tense the rope manually before tensing the spring”

   Broaderchange
3. 3.

   become tense, nervous, or uneasy

   “He tensed up when he saw his opponent enter the room”

   Synonymstense up

   Antonymsrelax

   Broaderchange state
4. 4.

   cause to be tense and uneasy or nervous or anxious

   “he got a phone call from his lawyer that tensed him up”

   Synonymsstraintense up

   Antonymsrelax

   Broaderaffect

   Narrowerstretch

1. 1.

   in or of a state of physical or nervous tension

   Antonymsrelaxed

   Similararousedcliff-hangingtautantsyedgyelectricisotonicnervous
2. 2.

   pronounced with relatively tense tongue muscles (e.g., the vowel sound in `beat')

   Antonymslax

   Similarconstricted

   phonetics

3. 3.

   taut or rigid; stretched tight

   “tense piano strings”

   Antonymslax

   Similaroverstrungtaut

1. 1.

   a grammatical category of verbs used to express distinctions of time

   Broadergrammatical category

   Narrowerpresentaoristpastfutureprogressiveperfective

Other forms of tense

plural

tenses·

past tense

tensed·

present participle

tensing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about tense

What does tense mean?

tense means "become stretched or tense or taut". That is the primary sense; the word has 8 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in tense?

tense has 1 syllable: tense. In IPA it is /ˈtɛns/.

What is another word for tense?

Close synonyms include strain, tense up, strain, tense up. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of tense?

The recorded antonyms are relax, relax, relaxed, lax.

Is tense a common word?

tense is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with tense?

2 words rhyme with tense. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.