tense

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Rhymes with -ɛns

From Middle English tens, from Old French tens (modern French temps), from Latin tempus. Doublet of tempo and tempus.

uncountable The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists. Dyirbal verbs are not inflected for tense.
countable An inflected form of a verb that indicates tense. English only has a past tense and a non-past tense; it has no future tense.
countable, proscribed A grammatical aspect.
countable, proscribed A verb form or construction indicating a combination of tense, aspect, and mood. The "simple present" tense in English can have several meanings.

Rhymes with -ɛns

Borrowed from Latin tēnsus, one form of the past participle of tendō (“stretch”).

Showing signs of stress or strain; not relaxed. You need to relax, all this overtime and stress is making you tense.
Characterized by strain (on the nerves, emotions, etc). (Compare charged.) Chi stops, but her eyes continue to pierce right through me and into Karima. A tense moment later, she drops her eyes back to the terminal and scans the data once more. The showdown is over, at least for the moment.
Pulled taut, without any slack.
Produced with relative constriction of the vocal tract.

transitive To make tense.
intransitive To become tense. The driver and the man shouted angrily at each other and I tensed, ready for violence. But soon everyone in the tap-tap joined in, capping remarks, joking, telling chicken and goat stories.