Word.ws English Dictionary

tensed

tensed is the simple past and past participle of tense.

Meaning of tense

Verb (1)

tense (third-person singular simple present tenses, present participle tensing, simple past and past participle tensed)

  1. (transitive) To apply a tense to.
    • tensing a verb

Verb (2)

tense (third-person singular simple present tenses, present participle tensing, simple past and past participle tensed)

  1. (transitive) To make tense.
  2. (intransitive) To become tense.
    • The driver and the man shouted angrily at each other and I tensed, ready for violence. But soon everyone in the tap-tap joined in, capping remarks, joking, telling chicken and goat stories.1983 December 24, Andrea Loewenstein, “"What's Freedom Without Food In Your Stomach?" — A Trip to Haiti”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 23, page 8

See all 11 meanings of tense

Forms of tensed

comparativemore tensed
superlativemost tensed

Words formed from tensed

Phrases with tensed

Questions about tensed

What is tensed the simple past and past participle of?
Tensed is the simple past and past participle of tense.

Words near tensed in the dictionary

  1. tense
  2. tense harmony
  3. tense up
  4. tense vowel
  5. tense vowels
  6. tensed
  7. tensed up
  8. tensegral
  9. tensegrities
  10. tensegritive
  11. tensegrity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tensed (page history and authors); tense (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: “tensed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tensed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.