Englishtense
adjective
1 the tense muscles of his neck:
taut, stretched tight, tight, rigid, stretched, strained, stiff.
▷antonyms slack, loose.
2 by five o'clock, Loretta was feeling tense and irritable:
anxious, nervous, on edge, edgy, strained, stressed, under a strain, under pressure, agitated, ill at ease, unrelaxed, in a state of nerves, in a state of agitation, fretful, uneasy, restless, worked up, keyed up, overwrought, highly strung, wrought up, strung out, jumpy, on tenterhooks, on pins and needles, with one's stomach in knots, fidgety, worried, apprehensive, upset, disturbed, panicky;
British nervy;
informal with butterflies in one's stomach, a bundle of nerves, jittery, twitchy, in a state, uptight, wired, het up, stressed out, white-knuckled;
British, informal strung up, stressy, windy;
North American, informal spooky, squirrelly;
Australian, New Zealand, informal toey;
dated overstrung.
▷antonyms calm, cool, relaxed.
3 it was a tense moment for everyone:
nerve-racking, stressful, anxious, worrying, concerning, fraught, charged, strained, nail-biting, worrisome, difficult, uneasy, uncomfortable;
exciting, cliffhanging, knife-edge, dramatic, volatile, explosive;
informal hairy, anxious-making, white-knuckle.
▷antonyms relaxing.
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tense (1) Oxford Dictionary of English