How to use taut in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, verb

Taut means of a body, muscle, etc., not flabby; firm, toned. Example: “The wire was held tautly, until it was so taut it broke; then there were two wires held slackly.”

Examples of taut by meaning

adjectiveOf a body, muscle, etc., not flabby; firm, toned.

His walk was quite different; his face too looked tauter.2014, Erich Maria Remarque, translated by Michael Hofmann, The Promised Land: Translated from the German, London: Vintage Books, →ISBN...
Where one is taut, the other is flaccid.2014 July, Miles J. Unger, “The Giant”, in Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 108
Her nipples were pink and taut, the rest of her naked body a soft glow as moonlight flowed through the living room.2015, Lindsay McKenna, “[Hidden Heart] Chapter 7”, in Lindsay McKenna, Merline Lovelace, edited by Patience Bloom, Course of Action...

adjectiveOf music, writing, etc., containing only relevant parts; brief and controlled.

If he curbs his swing a little and gets something crisper and tauter in his methods he may yet be very good.1921 March 19, Bernard Darwin, “Golf on the Forest”, in Peter Anderson Graham, editor, Country Life, volume XLIX, number 1263, London...
The superbly crafted suspense thriller that director Jonathan Demme has made from Thomas Harris's taut best-selling novel The Silence of the Lambs slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror.1991 February 14, Peter Travers, “The Silence of the Lambs [film review]”, in Rolling Stone, New York, N.Y.: Wenner Media, →ISSN, →OCLC...
Quick action and dialogue create a taut story, although it is illustration that shapes the characters.1997, “Minty: A Story of a Young Harriet Tubman (written by Alan Schroeder, 1996) [book review]”, in Linda R. Andres, editor, Children’s...

adjectiveUnder tension, like a stretched bowstring, rope, or sail; tight.

The pressure pad which holds the film taut as it passes the reproducing light beam must apply just the right amount of pressure.1929, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Fundamentals of Sound Recording, page 192
The cord goes taut, tauter, tautest, till down she trips and Adam has a good laugh.1971, Yoram Kaniuk, “The Barking”, in [Lazarre] Seymour Simckes, transl., Adam Resurrected: Translated from the Hebrew, New York, N.Y....
She was at the back of the crowd, face taut.2015 January, Win Blevins, Meredith Blevins, “Apocalypso Now”, in Moonlight Water (A Forge Book), New York, N.Y.: Tom Doherty Associates...

adjectiveExperiencing anxiety or stress.

His outward appearance was calm, but inside he was very taut.1989, Faye Kellerman, The Quality of Mercy, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow and Company, →ISBN

adjectiveOf a sailor, ship, etc., neat and well-disciplined.

George Szell took up the reins of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1946, and made it one of the world's tautest, most disciplined ensembles, ideal in the classical and early romantic repertory.2004, Allan Kozinn, “Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra; Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, and Hungarian Sketches: Chicago...

adjectiveStrong; uncompromising.

Yet the 2016 Éxilé rosé from Lise et Bertrand Jousset in the Loire Valley, made mostly of gamay, was yeasty let light and lithe, while the 2016 Indigeno from Ancarani in Emilia-Romagna, made of trebbiano, was taut and earthy.2018 March 8, Eric Asimov, “Bubbles, with joy: Pétillant Naturel’s triumphant return”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York...

verbTo make taut; to tauten, to tighten.

She tightened her arms until they ached, tauted the thin strips of muscle under her soft flesh, and with a mighty effort raised it and held it.1920 May, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “The Cut-Glass Bowl”, in Flappers and Philosophers, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC...

More sentences with taut

The wire was held tautly, until it was so taut it broke; then there were two wires held slackly.From the entry tautly
This turnbuckle tensions the cable so it is taut.From the entry tensions
We show that for a subclass of taut B-free systems proximality is the same as heredity.2015, Aurelia Bartnicka, Stanisław Kasjan, Joanna Kułaga-Przymus, Mariusz Lemańczyk, “B-free sets and dynamics”, in arXiv. From the entry proximality
After about 20 seconds, he ended his performance with a punctuative smack of the taut drum heads.2009 September 13, Kirk Semple, “Giving Ramadan a Drumroll in Brooklyn at 4 A.M.”, in New York Times. From the entry punctuative
The ruched dresses are a mindbender, with taut stretch silk blending into draped folds.2009 June 4, Bernadette Morra, “Is Altuzarra fashion's new hope?”, in Toronto Star. From the entry mindbender
I still wouldn't mind having my buckle swashed by a nice taut blond.2009, Phillipa Ashley, Just Say Yes. From the entry swash someone's buckle
She knocked against the taut drum of her stomach with her knuckles.1995, Anne Peters, Along Comes Baby (page 84). From the entry overpregnant
The heart strings may be taut, even on the verge of snapping.1981, Millie Stamm, Be Still and Know, Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, →ISBN, page 14. From the entry selah
This taut, soldierly, professional story is something of a stranger among American novels about war making.1970 September 13, Robie MacAuley, “The Army as one of life's awful necessities”, in The New York Times. From the entry army
The camera backs away to the killcam view, the Samurai striking hard at the exposed, taut neck of the horned demon.2014, Cole, Nick, Soda pop soldier, Harper Voyager, page 285. From the entry killcam
So the tightrope these unmean men must walk drew taut.2010, John Lennard, Of Sex and Faerie: Further Essays on Genre Fiction, page 65. From the entry unmean
Overhaul down & hook the cat, haul taut.2009, Olof A. Eriksen, Constitution - All Sails Up and Flying, Outskirts Press, page 134. From the entry cat
Henry Lewis's body was tense, taut, his toes against the hockey, his right arm raised, his left eye half-closed.1977, Harry Harrison, chapter 22, in Skyfall, [London]: Hamlyn Publishing Group, →OCLC. From the entry hockey
Your buttocks will be flat and taut, living with muscle and blood, not misshapen by poor eating and oversitting.1964, Frank Smith, Brothers' keepers, page 112. From the entry oversitting
The straw was all arustle as Leah drew herself taut as a bow, then stretched quivering to her full length.1962, Gwyn Jones, The Walk Home, page 98. From the entry arustle
The strings of some violins when up to pitch are loose and flabby; some are very taut and hard.1961, The Violin Makers' Journal - Volume 5, page 71. From the entry flabby
As if to confirm his obituary for the martyrs of the movement, a massive thumping on taut calfskin drumheads now mingled with the trumpetry.2017, Günter Grass, The Tin Drum, page 107. From the entry trumpetry
Filled to bursting with IV fluids, the skin on my hips is taut; it feels like I’ve sausaged myself into pantyhose five sizes too small.2014 March/April, Caitlin Crawshaw, “The Other F-word”, in Briarpatch, volume 43, number 2, page 5. From the entry sausage
Wide and taut, fixed and immobile.2014, Tania Carver, The Doll's House, page 22. From the entry joker
Rucci, a slithery black jersey dress with a pavé of sequins at the hip and a taut, racerlike bodice signaled a turn.2007 October 9, Cathy Horyn, “The Handbag Gets the Last Word”, in New York Times. From the entry racerlike
In his drowse it all turned gleaming and mixing in him, his whole life, like the river gleaming taut between the trees.1990, Meridel Le Sueur, “Gone Home”, in Elaine Hedges, editor, Ripening: Selected Work, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: The Feminist Press at…. From the entry tawny
Their “stores”: a vacant lot, studded with holes, each covered with a taut mat designed to send some human into brief but ecstatic orbit.1960 May 15, John Flynn, “Business Is Bouncing: Rebound-Tumbling Takes West Coast by Storm”, in The Cedar Rapids Gazette, city final…. From the entry rebound-tumbling
If Y is a closed orientable graph manifold, we show that Y admits a coorientable taut foliation if and only if Y is not an L-space.2015, Jonathan Hanselman, Jacob Rasmussen, Sarah Dean Rasmussen, Liam Watson, “Taut foliations on graph manifolds”, in arXiv. From the entry coorientable
He can't hear what they're saying, but Jake is making angry movements with his hands and his taut posture semaphores, even to Daniel, his distinct displeasure.2011, Heather Menzies Jones, chapter 25, in NanoMan, [Morrisville, N.C.]: Lulu.com, →ISBN, page 133. From the entry semaphore
Often – I refer you in particular to Rod Stewart and Tony Blair – these moobs are strangely taut and unsaggy, and have that bee-stung, 12-year-old girl look.2007 January 6, The Guardian. From the entry moob
I took a knife down from where it hung on the side of the fireplace, & place the sharp tip against the taut body of the porcupine fish.2001, Richard Flanagan, Gould's Book of Fish, Vintage, published 2016, page 161. From the entry porcupine fish
To tighten the wire, thread a stick through both loops of wire; by twisting the stick you will take up the slack in the wires, pulling them taut.1999, Jackie Clay, Build the Right Fencing for Horses. From the entry take up the slack

Meaning of taut

adjective Of a body, muscle, etc., not flabby; firm, toned.
adjective Of a person, having a lean, strong body.
adjective Of music, writing, etc., containing only relevant parts; brief and controlled.

Full definition of taut

Questions about taut in a sentence

How do you use taut in a sentence?: Taut is used as an adjective and verb. For example: “The wire was held tautly, until it was so taut it broke; then there were two wires held slackly.”
What is a short sentence with taut?: “Wide and taut, fixed and immobile.”
What does taut mean?: Taut means of a body, muscle, etc., not flabby; firm, toned.

Adapted from Wiktionary: taut (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use taut in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/taut. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.