Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use tense in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb, adjective

Tense means the property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists. Example: “Dyirbal verbs are not inflected for tense.”

Examples of tense by meaning

nounThe 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.

nounAn inflected form of a verb that indicates tense.

  • English only has a past tense and a non-past tense; it has no future tense.

nounA verb form or construction indicating a combination of tense, aspect, and mood.

  • The "simple present" tense in English can have several meanings.
  • The Spanish teacher told the student to use the imperfect tense instead of the preterite tense.

verbTo apply a tense to.

  • tensing a verb

adjectiveShowing signs of stress or strain; not relaxed.

  • You need to relax, all this overtime and stress is making you tense.
  • "Attention," the tense man called out in Greek.2009 October 21, Richard Steinberg, The 4 Phase Man: A Novel, Bantam, →ISBN
  • I thought that only the two of us should share the special surprise." He gave a tense smile.2018 February 10, Ratna Chandu,, For a Girl in a Star, Sristhi Publishers & Distributors, →ISBN

adjectiveCharacterized by strain (on the nerves, emotions, etc). (Compare charged.).

  • A tense moment later, she drops her eyes back to the terminal and scans the data once more.2022 June 16, Marc B. DeGeorge, A Call to the Sky, MuseMarc Studio LLC, →ISBN

verbTo become tense.

  • The driver and the man shouted angrily at each other and I tensed, ready for violence.1983 December 24, Andrea Loewenstein, “"What's Freedom Without Food In Your Stomach?" — A Trip to Haiti”, in Gay Community News, volume 11...

More sentences with tense

  • "To buy" is an irregular English verb: its past simple and past participle tense is "bought".From the entry irregular
  • "Walked" is the past tense of the regular verb "to walk".From the entry regular
  • Spanish verb forms have different endings depending on the tense, mood and person.From the entry ending
  • The air was tense as the judge rose to deliver his verdict.From the entry air
  • The verb to run is strong, not weak, because the past tense is ran.From the entry weak
  • The historic tenses include the imperfect, the pluperfect, and the future perfect.From the entry historic
  • The mood at work has been tense, so he's looking for ways to lighten it up.From the entry lighten up
  • One can feel the threatening energy of the thought-forms left in the room after a tense fight.From the entry thought-form
  • A child familiar with past tenses formed with "-ed" overregularizes by saying "goed" instead of "went".From the entry overregularize
  • Please use only simple tenses in titles when submitting articles to our publication.From the entry simple tense
  • Put the following sentences into the past tense.From the entry put
  • A tense standoff between demonstrators and police continued overnight.From the entry standoff
  • Her optimism seemed to leaven the otherwise tense environment.From the entry leaven
  • In the phrases ‘I am running tomorrow’ and ‘I am running now,’ the main verb is in the non-past tense.From the entry non-past
  • Present tense is a simple tense, even when used in complex ways, such as to describe past events.From the entry simple tense
  • We watched a heart-racingly tense thriller.From the entry racingly
  • Brianna apparently returned tense and agitated, unwilling to say what was bothering her.2026 July 16, Nicholas Muhoro, “Inside the 2004 Brianna Maitland Case: One of Vermont’s Most Haunting Mysteries”, in Skip Boring, archived…. From the entry apparently
  • Then at one point I wanted to add head-marking to the language to mark tenses.2024 September 16, H. S. Teoh <hsteoh@qfbox.info>, “Re: Hrmitt lexicon reached 800 entries”, in Conlang mailing list. From the entry protolang
  • “Full control over one’s smart home is, at least in the present tense, an impossibility,” she said.2023 February 17, Anna Kodé, quoting Suzanne Woods, “Unwanted Connection: Who Has Control of Your Smart Home?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry smart home
  • "Helene," he croaked, reaching out his arms—his voice tensed with the infinity of his desire.2022 September 16, Stephen Leacock, Further Foolishness, DigiCat. From the entry hoarse
  • Francine leans down and her body tenses, shoulders reddening as she makes a sharp, punchy gesture.2021, Chandler Baker, The Husbands. From the entry punchy
  • They are literally tensing to brace themselves for the impact of the feared trigger or upsetting experience.2017, Ladislav Timulak, James McElvaney, Transforming Generalized Anxiety: An emotion-focused approach, Taylor & Francis, page 123. From the entry self-interruption
  • His thumb circles my clit, and every muscle in my body tenses.2015, Melanie Marchande, His Secretary: Unveiled. From the entry hnnng
  • A lioness on the prowl made for a tense dung safari.2015, Caitlin O’Connell, “Baying at a Testosterone-Filled Moon”, in Elephant Don: The Politics of a Pachyderm Posse, Chicago, Ill.…. From the entry musthy
  • Consider, then, the result of applying these tense morphemes to a perfective or an imperfective verb.2012, Ronald W. Langacker, Essentials of Cognitive Grammar, Oxford University Press, page 157. From the entry imperfective
  • There are two past tense aspects and forms in Spanish: the preterite and the imperfect.2011, Jill Rodriguez, Ken Stewart, CliffsNotes Spanish 1 Quick Review, page 118. From the entry preterite tense
  • Try to destressify a tense situation as the latter puts hurdles on the thinking process.2011, Raj Gopal Katju, 40 Stress Busters for Executives, New Delhi: Pustak Mahal, →ISBN. From the entry destressify
  • Breakspear talks about the few pleasures she had before prison in the past tense.2005 August 16, “'I took all my anger out on him'”, in The Guardian. From the entry banger racing
  • The aorist tense describes the past action as a total event viewed in its entirety.2002, Erwin Penner, A Guide to New Testament Greek, Toronto: Clements, →ISBN, page 42. From the entry aorist tense
  • 'slightly' feels unnecessary, and breaks the feel of 'tense and quivering'.2002 November 17, Dani Emers, “Consolation // MikeB”, in alt.arts.poetry.comments (Usenet). From the entry adverbify

Meaning of tense

  1. noun The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists.
  2. noun An inflected form of a verb that indicates tense.
  3. noun A grammatical aspect.

Full definition of tense

Questions about tense in a sentence

How do you use tense in a sentence?
Tense is used as a noun, verb and adjective. For example: “Dyirbal verbs are not inflected for tense.”
What is a short sentence with tense?
“tensing a verb”
What does tense mean?
Tense means the property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tense (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.

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