tense
Example Sentences
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It was heading towards a tense climax when Piastri's retirement brought out the VSC.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
As the world champion cruised to a comfortable victory, there was a tense fight for the remaining podium positions in the closing laps between Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Mercedes' Kimi Antonelli.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
Member nations of the ICC voted to remove Khan, 82 to 13 with 15 abstentions, officials familiar with the matter said, in a tense session at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
Part of that attention is aimed at Burwell’s score, a masterpiece of electronic minimalism in which pitch bends and hard clashes create the dread and whiplash that make the film so tense.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
Now, as we eat dinner, the air grows tense with Papá’s silence.
From "Across So Many Seas" by Ruth Behar
“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
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
Rasavong’s body still tenses up when recounting, in particular, a call from an elderly woman.
From Seattle Times ● Jan. 3, 2024
From inside of the office comes the faint sound of footsteps, and Katherine tenses.
From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland
“As the night progressed, it got tenser and tenser. There were just more cops on all sides. It felt like we were being slowly pushed in and crushed,” said Ocean Muir, a sophomore.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 25, 2024
Things felt "tenser, the stakes feel higher", he said, adding that he had been "alarmed" by the number of people who had come out on to the streets.
From BBC ● Oct. 19, 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
“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
Norway's prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre describes this as the tensest security situation the country has faced in decades.
From BBC ● Nov. 18, 2022
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
The show’s tensest moment is with Carmela alone in La Tofana’s for the first time, deciding whether to give out a poisonous remedy that Giulia only offers women after careful, extensive vetting.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 20, 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
Giving evidence at Liverpool Crown Court, Amaaz said he tensed up as he was grabbed by the arm and recognised it was a police officer when he turned round.
From BBC ● Apr. 28, 2026
Imagine how the majority of spectators would have tensed up when manager Dave Roberts trudged to the mound to remove Alex Vesia if the game was actually close.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 1, 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
After a moment she tensed and let out a low bark.
From "The Unseen Guest" by Maryrose Wood
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
Ms Letby, who became the child's dedicated nurse later that evening, noted at 21:14 that he was tensing his limbs, curling his fingers and toes and rotating his hands and feet inwards.
From BBC ● Feb. 20, 2023
Foot by foot, we pushed and pulled the wagon with Dragonwings up the hill, its wings dipping and bobbing as if it were tensing itself.
From "Dragonwings" by Laurence Yep
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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