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tense

noun
/tɛns/

Etymology

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

  1. derived from tempus
  2. derived from tens
  3. inherited from tens

Definitions

  1. The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs…

    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.

  2. 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.
    • In ſo moche that if any verbe be of the thyꝛde coniugation I ſet out all his rotes and tenſes[…]

  3. A grammatical aspect.

  4. ›+ 8 more definitions

    1. A verb form or construction indicating a combination of tense, aspect, and mood.

      • The "simple present" tense in English can have several meanings.
      • The Spanish teacher told the student to use the imperfect tense instead of the preterite tense.

    2. To apply a tense to.

      • tensing a verb

    3. Showing signs of stress or strain

      Showing signs of stress or strain; not relaxed.

      • You need to relax, all this overtime and stress is making you tense.
      • "Attention," the tense man called out in Greek. "This is Lieutenant Kazamakis of the Cypriot Provisional Guard. You will immediately surrender all weapons and slowly come down the stairs, hands above your head." No answer.
      • "There's no one in the house," Sahas cut him off quickly. "Actually[,] I have sent them away. I thought that only the two of us should share the special surprise." He gave a tense smile.

    4. 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.

    5. Pulled taut, without any slack.

    6. Produced with relative constriction of the vocal tract.

    7. To make tense.

    8. 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.

The neighborhood

Derived

absolute tense, aorist tense, compound tense, conditional tense, continuous tense, future tense, hodiernal tense, imperfect tense, past historic tense, past imperfect tense, past tense, perfect tense, pluperfect tense, present tense, preterite tense, primary tense, progressive tense, relative tense, secondary tense, simple tense, supine tense, tensal, hypertense, tense vowel, tense up

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at tense. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01tense02verb03indicates04indicate05proper06strictly07strict

A definitional loop anchored at tense. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

7 hops · closes at tense

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA