0 the quality of being worried or nervous: --
There was an underlying tenseness in his manner.
1 a state in which the muscles in your body or in a part of your body are stretched tight and stiff: --
2 the quality of being made with more force than other speech sounds: --
Because voice is not involved, this is explained as a contrast in tenseness, called a fortis and lenis contrast.
There is correspondence between tones in tonal dialects and tenseness in non-tonal dialects.
Birds affected by strychnine poisoning exhibit wing droop, salivation, tremors, muscle tenseness and convulsions.
Vowels are also categorized by the tenseness or laxness of the tongue.
One feature or the other may be considered redundant, and some phonemic analyses prefer to treat it as an opposition of tenseness.
However, this familiarity subsides almost as quickly as the tenseness of the opening, giving way to a dramatic brass melody.
Tenseness is a phonemic feature in syllables with unaspirated initials.
We shall be dealing with millions of votes, with tens of thousands in many individual constituencies, and there is great pressure and tenseness on the night.
