Tense vs. Tension — What's the Difference?

Tightly stretched; taut.

The act or process of stretching something tight.

In a state of nervous tension or mental strain

The condition of so being stretched; tautness.

Causing or characterized by nervous tension or mental strain

A force tending to stretch or elongate something.

(Linguistics) Enunciated with taut muscles, as the sound (ē) in keen.

A measure of such a force

To make or become tense.

Mental, emotional, or nervous strain

A property of verbs in which the time of the action or state, as well as its continuance or completion, is indicated or expressed.

Barely controlled hostility or a strained relationship between people or groups

A category or set of verb forms that indicate or express the time, such as past, present, or future, of the action or state.

A balanced relation between strongly opposing elements

Any of the forms of a verb which distinguish when an action or state of being occurs or exists.

The interplay of conflicting elements in a piece of literature, especially a poem.

An inflected form of a verb that indicates tense.

A device for regulating tautness, especially a device that controls the tautness of thread on a sewing machine or loom.

The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists.

(Electricity) Voltage or potential; electromotive force.

To apply a tense to.

To subject to tension; tighten.

(transitive) To make tense.

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

(intransitive) To become tense.

Psychological state of being tense.

Showing signs of stress or strain; not relaxed.

A feeling of nervousness, excitement, or fear that is created in a movie, book, etc.; suspense.

Pulled taut, without any slack.

State of an elastic object which is stretched in a way which increases its length.

One of the forms which a verb takes by inflection or by adding auxiliary words, so as to indicate the time of the action or event signified; the modification which verbs undergo for the indication of time.

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).

Stretched tightly; strained to stiffness; rigid; not lax; as, a tense fiber.

Voltage. 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.

A grammatical category of verbs used to express distinctions of time

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

Stretch or force to the limit;

The act of stretching or straining; the state of being stretched or strained to stiffness; the state of being bent strained; as, the tension of the muscles, tension of the larynx.

Increase the tension on;

Fig.: Extreme strain of mind or excitement of feeling; intense effort.

Become tense or tenser;

The degree of stretching to which a wire, cord, piece of timber, or the like, is strained by drawing it in the direction of its length; strain.

Make tense and uneasy or nervous or anxious;

The force by which a part is pulled when forming part of any system in equilibrium or in motion; as, the tension of a srting supporting a weight equals that weight.

In or of a state of physical or nervous tension

A device for checking the delivery of the thread in a sewing machine, so as to give the stitch the required degree of tightness.

Pronounced with relatively tense tongue muscles (e.g., the vowel sound in `beat')

Expansive force; the force with which the particles of a body, as a gas, tend to recede from each other and occupy a larger space; elastic force; elasticity; as, the tension of vapor; the tension of air.

Taut or rigid; stretched tight;

The quality in consequence of which an electric charge tends to discharge itself, as into the air by a spark, or to pass from a body of greater to one of less electrical potential. It varies as the quantity of electricity upon a given area.

Feelings of hostility that are not manifest;

(psychology) a state of mental or emotional strain or suspense;

The physical condition of being stretched or strained;

A balance between and interplay of opposing elements or tendencies (especially in art or literature);

(physics) a stress that produces an elongation of an elastic physical body;

The action of stretching something tight;