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tense

Pronunciation: /tɛns/

The English word “tense” has 11 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists.
  2. An inflected form of a verb that indicates tense.
  3. A grammatical aspect.
  4. A verb form or construction indicating a combination of tense, aspect, and mood.

verb

  1. To apply a tense to.
  2. To make tense.
  3. To become tense.

adjective

  1. Showing signs of stress or strain; not relaxed.
  2. Characterized by strain (on the nerves, emotions, etc). (Compare charged.)
  3. Pulled taut, without any slack.
  4. Produced with relative constriction of the vocal tract.

Etymology

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

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.