tense
Example Sentences
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"Dolly is like a mother to everyone who lives here," said 24-year-old local Jonah La Grand, clad in a Dolly Parton t-shirt and speaking of her in the present tense.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
That Jamieson kept his shape over a tense final few holes is testment to his resolve.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
Alcaraz is renowned for swashbuckling shot-making and flashing his infectious smile - even in the most tense moments of competitive matches.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
“The U.S. has no talks planned with Iran, while the Strait of Hormuz situation remains tense, with limited traffic and ongoing disagreement around reopening conditions,” analysts at Sucden Financial said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026
Next thing, we were all driving into town and they were so quiet and tense it just seemed like it was not a good time to speak, let alone talk about my groundbreaking, earth-shattering invention.
From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan
“When I’m frustrated and my eyes roll and my voice tenses, they feel that,” he said.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026
Mr. Drout analyzes with clarity and humor Tolkien’s fascination with Finnish grammar, the distinctive ways he uses pronouns and the particular verb tenses he favors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
Simon Cheng still visibly tenses when he describes his detention in China.
From New York Times ● May 27, 2024
As the ants start to attack, the larva tenses its muscles and expels a drop of bright red fluid known as hemolymph.
From Science Magazine ● Mar. 15, 2024
With each step, another muscle in my body tenses.
From "Internment" by Samira Ahmed
If he is, EU leaders' summits could become tenser and more fractious - for a number of reasons.
From BBC ● Nov. 23, 2023
And this reaction evokes the challenge CNN faces as its news team barrels into a national election cycle that's already looking tenser and more fraught than 2020's or 2022's nailbiters.
From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2023
Things got tenser when Hyundai and LG Energy Solution announced a $4.3 billion electric battery plant in May at Hyundai’s new complex.
From Washington Times ● Jun. 27, 2023
But essentially, the post-election weeks have become a unique political grace period for lawmakers leaving Congress to try to forge bipartisan compromises that eluded them in tenser times.
From New York Times ● Dec. 16, 2022
“Four, three, two . “Oppenheimer, on whom had rested a very heavy burden, grew tenser as the last seconds ticked off,” remembered Farrell.
From "Bomb" by Steve Sheinkin
The tensest moment of the debate was when Bolsonaro called da Silva to stand next to him as he answered a question.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 29, 2022
Amid its tensest standoff with the West since the Cold War, Russia plans to give its nuclear weapons apparatus a practice run this weekend.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 18, 2022
The meeting had the Cold War atmospherics of the angry debates that once punctuated Security Council sessions during the tensest faceoffs between the United States and Soviet Union.
From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2022
The comments were among the most conciliatory that Moscow has made on the Ukraine crisis, which has escalated into one of the tensest East-West standoffs since the Cold War ended three decades ago.
From Reuters ● Jan. 28, 2022
The next forty-eight hours, Hitler later confessed, were the tensest of his life.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
When her sister, Rowe, walked in that morning, she found Waldorf with her eyes wide and glazed over, her jaw tensed.
From Salon ● May 27, 2026
In a flash, she springs into action, her muscles tensed and claws unsheathed.
From BBC ● Feb. 21, 2025
It was too expensive to keep the fibers tensed all the time, plus it interfered with the electricity—but for earthquake-length bursts of time, the building and its occupants would be safe.
From Slate ● Jan. 27, 2024
They tensed up whenever someone opened the doors to the kitchen, and they both stayed in its far-back corner, anxious to avoid the windows.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 19, 2023
He recalled the way his father had tensed, hand flying to the hilt of his hanjari.
From "Beasts of Prey" by Ayana Gray
My muscles were tensing at the torrent of oversharing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
After a difficult doctor’s appointment with her mother recently, Thompson says she felt her whole body tensing up.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 29, 2025
"Sometimes, I catch myself tensing up," Justin said.
From Salon ● Oct. 1, 2023
“I’m tensing up. There’s a lot of stuff I can do to protect myself.”
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 8, 2023
Then, tensing, digging his nails into soil, he murmurs, “Tell me what happened.”
From "Will’s Race for Home" by Jewell Parker Rhodes
Vocabulary lists containing tense
A Long Walk to Water
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TEKS ELAR Academic Vocabulary List (5th-7th grades)
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Language and Grammar - Introductory
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