tension

English Online Dictionary. What means tension‎? What does tension mean?

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French tension, from Latin tēnsiō.

Pronunciation

• enPR: tĕnʹ-shən, IPA^(key): /ˈtɛnʃən/
• Rhymes: -ɛnʃən
• Hyphenation: ten‧sion

Noun

tension (countable and uncountable, plural tensions)

1. The condition of being held in a state between two or more forces, which are acting in opposition to each other.

2. A psychological state of being tense.
3. A feeling of nervousness, excitement, or fear that is created in a movie, book, etc.; suspense.
4. (physics, engineering) The state of an elastic object which is stretched in a way which increases its length.
5. (physics, engineering) A force transmitted through a rope, string, cable, or similar object (used with prepositions on, in, or of, e.g., "The tension in the cable is 1000 N", to convey that the same magnitude of force applies to objects attached to both ends).
6. (physics, engineering) Voltage.

Usage notes

• Of the sixth sense, usually only the terms low tension, high tension, and extra-high tension, and the abbreviations LT, HT, and EHT are used. They are not precisely defined; LT is normally a few volts, HT a few hundreds of volts, and EHT thousands of volts.

Derived terms

Related terms

• tensile

Descendants

• → Japanese: テンション (tenshon, “excitement”)
  • → Korean: 텐션 (tensyeon)

Translations

Verb

tension (third-person singular simple present tensions, present participle tensioning, simple past and past participle tensioned)

1. To place an object in tension, to pull or place strain on.

Translations

Anagrams

• intones, neonist, Sonnite, sention, tones in, Tenison, noneist

Esperanto

Noun

tension

1. accusative singular of tensio

Finnish

Noun

tension

1. genitive singular of tensio

Anagrams

• onnesti

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French tension, borrowed from Latin tensiō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɑ̃.sjɔ̃/

Noun

tension f (plural tensions)

1. tension
2. blood pressure

3. voltage

Derived terms

Related terms

• tendre

Descendants

• → Haitian Creole: tansyon
• → Romanian: tensiune
• → Turkish: tansiyon

Further reading

• “tension”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• entions, tenions

Occitan

Pronunciation

Noun

tension f (plural tensions)

1. tension