tense
Pronunciation Etymology 1
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Pronunciation Etymology 1
From Middle English tens, from Old French tens (modern French temps), from Latin tempus.
Nountense (plural tenses)
(grammar, countable) Any of the forms of a verb which distinguish when an action or state of being occurs or exists. - The basic tenses in English are present, past and future.
- (linguistics, grammar, countable) An inflection form of a verb that indicates tense.
- English only has a past tense and a non-past tense; it has no future tense.
- (linguistics, 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.
- See: en
- French: temps, temps verbal
- German: Zeit, Tempus
- Italian: tempo
- Portuguese: tempo
- Russian: вре́мя
- Spanish: tiempo, tiempo gramatical
tense (tenses, present participle tensing; simple past and past participle tensed)
- (grammar, transitive) To apply a tense to.
- tensing a verb
Borrowed from Latin tēnsus, one form of the past participle of tendō.
Adjectivetense (comparative tenser, superlative tensest)
- Showing signs of stress or strain; not relaxed.
- Synonyms: stressed, unrelaxed
- You need to relax, all this overtime and stress is making you tense.
- Pulled taut, without any slack.
- (linguistics) (of a vowel) Produced with relative constriction of the vocal tract.
- French: tendu
- German: gespannt, angespannt, verkrampft (figurative)
- Portuguese: tenso
- Russian: напряжённый
- Spanish: tenso
tense (tenses, present participle tensing; simple past and past participle tensed)
Translations TranslationsThis text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.003
