tightening
tightening is the present participle and gerund of tighten.
Meaning of tighten
Verb
tighten (third-person singular simple present tightens, present participle tightening, simple past and past participle tightened)
- To make tighter.
- Please tighten that screw a quarter-turn.
- To become tighter.
- That joint is tightening as the wood dries.
- To make money harder to borrow or obtain.
- If the government doesn't tighten the money supply, inflation is certain to be harsh.
- To raise short-term interest rates.
- The Fed is expected to tighten by a quarter-point.
Noun
tightening (plural tightenings)
- The act or process of making more tight.
- There are lingering feelings among some board members, especially in the developing world, that the fund joined with the United States and other wealthy countries in demanding overly austere budget cuts and other fiscal tightenings for the countries that were bailed out in the previous decade.2007 September 28, Steven R. Weisman, “I.M.F. Faces a Question of Identity”, in New York Times
Forms of tightening
| plural | tightenings |
|---|
Words formed from tightening
- belt-tightening
- electoral tightening
- tightening gel
Phrases with tightening
Questions about tightening
- What does tightening mean?
- Tightening means the act or process of making more tight.
- What is tightening the present participle and gerund of?
- Tightening is the present participle and gerund of tighten.
- What part of speech is tightening?
- Tightening is a noun.
- What is the plural of tightening?
- The plural of tightening is tightenings.
Words near tightening in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tightening (page history and authors); tighten (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: “tightening.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tightening. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.