Word.ws English Dictionary

tenson

tenson noun: a form of lyric poem used by troubadours in Provençal in which two voices present different sides of an argument, in alternate stanzas, lines, or groups of lines with identical structure.

Noun

tenson (plural tensons)

  1. A form of lyric poem used by troubadours in Provençal in which two voices present different sides of an argument, in alternate stanzas, lines, or groups of lines with identical structure.
    • Kolsen himself (op. cit., II, p. 16) remarks that it seems surprising that, at this early stage in a career which dated only from about 1165 (cf. Jeanroy, op. cit. II, p. 51, note 2), Giraut should address his interlocutor, Raimbaut, in the familiar second person in contrast with his much more...1976, Peire Rogier, Derek E. T. Nicholson, The Poems of the Troubadour Peire Rogier, →ISBN, page 25
    • Another type of medieval text that could highlight conflicting perspectives is the Provencal lyric form called the tenson. The tenson involves a dialogue between two voices that take turns discussing a subject, either in alternating stanzas or in two groups of stanzas that mirror each other in...1998, Rosemarie Potz McGerr, Chaucer's Open Books: Resistance to Closure in Medieval Discourse, →ISBN

Examples of tenson in a sentence

  • One may wonder why Giraut should write his part of the tenson with such deference to Raimbaut if they had met and written together as early as 1166.1976, Peire Rogier, Derek E. T. Nicholson, The Poems of the Troubadour Peire Rogier, →ISBN, page 25:
  • Another type of medieval text that could highlight conflicting perspectives is the Provencal lyric form called the tenson.1998, Rosemarie Potz McGerr, Chaucer's Open Books: Resistance to Closure in Medieval Discourse, →ISBN:

Forms of tenson

pluraltensons

Questions about tenson

What does tenson mean?
Tenson means a form of lyric poem used by troubadours in Provençal in which two voices present different sides of an argument, in alternate stanzas, lines, or groups of lines with identical structure.
How do you use tenson in a sentence?
One may wonder why Giraut should write his part of the tenson with such deference to Raimbaut if they had met and written together as early as 1166.
What part of speech is tenson?
Tenson is a noun.
What is the plural of tenson?
The plural of tenson is tensons.

Words near tenson in the dictionary

  1. tensomes
  2. tensometer
  3. tensometers
  4. tensomething
  5. tensomethings
  6. tenson
  7. tensons
  8. tensor
  9. tensor fasciae latae
  10. tensor product
  11. tensor products

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tenson (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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