TENSE in a Sentence

Learn TENSE from example sentences; some of them are from classic books. These examples are selected from a corpus with 300,000 sentences, including classic works and current mainstream media. Some sentences also link to their contexts.

51 example sentences for TENSE, such as:

1. For a moment the air was tense.
2. Indicative mood, present tense.
3. For a tense moment, there was silence.
4. Mrs. Trenor sharply corrected the tense.
5. Marion spoke, eager to break the tense silence.

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 Meanings and Examples of TENSE
Definition Example Sentence Classic Sentence
tense
 a.  stretch or force to the limit; tight
Classic Sentence: (38 in 3 pages)
1  For a tense moment, there was silence.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER VI
2  Even Melanie, now great with child, forgot her modesty and worked feverishly side by side with Prissy, Cookie and Scarlett, her face as tense as any of the wounded.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XVIII
3  Secretly she was just as frightened as he was, but it angered her to be reminded of it every minute by his tense, drawn face.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XIX
4  He leaned back carelessly in his chair and looked into her tense face and his own dark face was inscrutable.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXXIV
5  For a moment the air was tense.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XL
6  She was born in the middle of a week when frenzied excitement gripped Atlanta and the air was tense with expectation of disaster.
Gone With The Wind By Margaret Mitche
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XLII
7  Mrs. Trenor sharply corrected the tense.
House of Mirth By Edith Wharton
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 1: Chapter 7
8  Sometimes she one-stepped demurely; sometimes, in dread of life's slipping past, she turned into a bacchanal, her tender eyes excited, her throat tense, as she slid down the room.
Main Street By Sinclair Lewis
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER I
9  There was a look of excitement upon her face, of tense effort, as of one struggling mightily, or witnessing a struggle.
The Jungle By Upton Sinclair
Context  Highlight   In Chapter 28
10  St. Clare, like most men of his class of mind, cordially hated the present tense of action, generally; and, therefore, he was considerably annoyed by Miss Ophelia's downrightness.
Uncle Tom's Cabin By Harriet Beecher Stowe
Context  Highlight   In CHAPTER XXVIII
11  Indicative mood, present tense.
Hard Times By Charles Dickens
Context  Highlight   In BOOK 2: CHAPTER II
12  He was pale and tense, withdrawn into himself, and obstinately determined to save his country and his own position, let it be Lloyd George or who it might.
Lady Chatterley's Lover By D H Lawrence
Context  Highlight   In Chapter 1
13  But his voice was a little tense when he spoke to her, and he began to be silent whenever she was present.
Lady Chatterley's Lover By D H Lawrence
Context  Highlight   In Chapter 9
14  She saw his eyes, tense and brilliant, fierce, not loving.
Lady Chatterley's Lover By D H Lawrence
Context  Highlight   In Chapter 10
15  The man looked down in silence at the tense phallos, that did not change.
Lady Chatterley's Lover By D H Lawrence
Context  Highlight   In Chapter 14
Example Sentence:
1  Add -ed to all these verbs to put them in the past tense.
2  The audience was tense as they waited for the acrobat to jump.
3  Marion spoke, eager to break the tense silence.
4  There is no exactly equivalent French tense to the present perfect tense in English.
5  This gesture of goodwill did little to improve the tense atmosphere at the talks.
6  For a few tense minutes, the astronauts lost radio contact with mission control.
7  Even a casual observer could hardly have failed to notice the heightening of an already tense atmosphere.
8  After a tense standoff with riot police, the authorities made the fateful decision to break up the peaceful protest with force.
9  The northern city of Kano, which has a history of sectarian violence is especially tense, but has remained peaceful.
10  Mandela led South Africa through a tense transition from apartheid to democracy and became president in the country's first all-race elections in 1994.
11  McKay walked slowly toward this screen, feeling a growing tenseness.
12  The athletes waited, with each sinew of theirs tensed.
13  He tensed himself for the jump and landed expertly on the other side.