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tension

nounverbcommon in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ˈtɛnʃn̩//
  • United States//ˈtɛnʃən//

The condition of being held in a state between two or more forces, which are acting in opposition to each other.

noun

  1. 1

    The condition of being held in a state between two or more forces, which are acting in opposition to each other.

    My tensions with Eric over his alleged past actions have been fully resolved.

  2. 2

    A psychological state of being tense.

  3. 3

    A feeling of nervousness, excitement, or fear that is created in a movie, book, etc.; suspense.

    This popular characterization of the Devil incorporates the Trickster archetype. Both are smart, energetic, lying, quick to take advantage of an opportunity. Both have latent narrative appeal in their generation of tension and conflict, their unpredictability, their defiance of hierarchy and authority.

  4. 4

    The state of an elastic object which is stretched in a way which increases its length.

  5. 5

    A force transmitted through a rope, string, cable, or similar object (used with prepositions on, in, or of, e.g., "The tension in the cable is 1000 N", to convey that the same magnitude of force applies to objects attached to both ends).

    Most of the overhead system is of the weight-tensioned type, constant tension being automatically applied by balance weights.

  6. 6

    Voltage.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ten- Proto-Indo-European *tend- Proto-Indo-European *-eti Proto-Indo-European *téndeti Proto-Italic *tendō Latin tendō Proto-Indo-European *-tis Proto-Indo-European *-Hō Proto-Indo-European *-tiHō Proto-Italic *-tiō Latin -tiō Latin tēnsiōder. Middle French tensionbor. English tension Borrowed from Middle French tension, from Latin tēnsiō.

verb

  1. 1

    To place an object in tension, to pull or place strain on.

    We tensioned the cable until it snapped.

Forms

plural
tensions
past tense
tensioned
past participle
tensioned
present participle
tensioning
third person singular
tensions
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).