Word.ws English Dictionary

tens across the board

tens across the board phrase: used to express praise or amazement.

Phrase

tens across the board

  1. (informal) Used to express praise or amazement.
    • Flashing their magical smiles at the premiere of “The Dressmaker” in Melbourne, Australia, we couldn't decided^([sic]) who was the better looking bro, Liam (far l.) or Chris Hemsworth (near l.), so we'll just call it even. Tens across the board – for being handsome.2015 October 20, “Hemsworths Have a Hot-Off”, in New York Daily News, volume 97, number 117, page 22
    • Yas (Vivian Oparah): Babe, that outfit? Tens across the board.
      Woman in Shop (Charlotte Melia): Oh. Thank you so much.2023, Nathan Bryon, Tom Melia, directed by Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane

Origin of tens across the board

Referring to the points awarded by judges in juried competitions, ten being the highest possible score.

Questions about tens across the board

What does tens across the board mean?
Tens across the board means used to express praise or amazement.
What part of speech is tens across the board?
Tens across the board is a phrase.

Words near tens across the board in the dictionary

  1. Tenrikyo
  2. Tenrikyoist
  3. Tenrikyoists
  4. Tenrikyō
  5. tens
  6. tens across the board
  7. tensal
  8. tensan
  9. Tensas Parish
  10. Tensaw
  11. Tensaws

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tens across the board (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “tens across the board.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tens_across_the_board. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.