Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive & intransitive verb To make or become taut.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To become taut or tense.
- To make taut, tense, or tight; tighten; stiffen.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To make
taut . - verb ergative To become
taut .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb make taut or tauter
- verb become taut or tauter
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Then, the legs tauten, the balance shifts into the balls of the feet, the torso seems to lengthen, and suddenly someone has a leg against her ear.
Larissa Archer: Lines Ballet's Resin Breaks Down Ballet's Conventions Larissa Archer 2011
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Then, the legs tauten, the balance shifts into the balls of the feet, the torso seems to lengthen, and suddenly someone has a leg against her ear.
Larissa Archer: Lines Ballet's Resin Breaks Down Ballet's Conventions Larissa Archer 2011
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Then, the legs tauten, the balance shifts into the balls of the feet, the torso seems to lengthen, and suddenly someone has a leg against her ear.
Larissa Archer: Lines Ballet's Resin Breaks Down Ballet's Conventions Larissa Archer 2011
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Then, the legs tauten, the balance shifts into the balls of the feet, the torso seems to lengthen, and suddenly someone has a leg against her ear.
Larissa Archer: Lines Ballet's Resin Breaks Down Ballet's Conventions Larissa Archer 2011
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As she listened I could see the fear tauten her face.
CONSPIRATA ROBERT HARRIS 2010
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He felt his stale melancholia leave him, his head become clearer, his nerves tauten.
Autumn Thomas Plastino Martin 2010
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Every nerve in his body seemed to tauten: He pulled out his wand, moved into the shadows beside the decapitated elf heads, and waited.
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Rowling, J. K. 2007
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Every nerve in his body seemed to tauten: He pulled out his wand, moved into the shadows beside the decapitated elf heads, and waited.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Rowling, J. K. 2007
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There was no breeze, and as the clumsy ship rolled and lurched on the heaving sea, her idle sails flapped against her masts with a regularly recurring noise, and her bowsprit would seem to rise higher with the water's swell, to dip again with a jerk that made each rope tremble and tauten.
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Something seemed to tauten in her face, but she said, 'Oh, it was all right, you know ...'
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Rowling, J. K. 2003
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