1 with the muscles in your body or part of your body stretched tight and stiff:
3 in a way that is nervous or anxious:
He was embarrassed and replied tensely to the question.
The tenants had refused to pay their rent and were tensely waiting for something nasty to happen.
Tensely they waited, expecting to be discovered at any moment.
Both sides tensely watched the totals in a painfully close vote.
A separate unit houses another motor, across which four strips of oxidised 35 mm film are tensely looped.
