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What does on tenterhooks mean?

Anonymous

∙ 12y ago

Updated: 10/16/2024

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Q: What does on tenterhooks mean?

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What does the saying on tenterhooks mean?

It means to be anxiously waiting for something to happen.

What is a sentence with the word tenterhooks?

The movie kept the entire theater on tenterhooks with the epic battle scenes.

What does the phrase 'waiting for a phone call you were on tenterhooks' mean?

It means 'anxiously waiting for news about someone or something'

What actors and actresses appeared in Tenterhooks - 2002?

The cast of Tenterhooks - 2002 includes: Jayke Aernan Karen Berger Kwame Ngozi Orji Charles Okafor Zack Orji

How do you use the word tenterhooks in a sentence?

Tenterhooks are vicious s-shaped hooks, used to stretch linen in the fields, one end snagged through the cloth and the other end looped over a wooden frame. Being on tenterhooks would involve having one snagged through each hand/foot, then pulled out tight - so not particularly comfortable.

What does waiting for a phone call you were on tender hooks?

Tenterhooks are hooks in a device called a tenter, used in the process of making woollen cloth. Being "on tenterhooks" means being in a state of tension, uneasiness, anxiety, i.e. feeling stretched like the cloth on the tenter.

What is the origin of the phrase on tenterhooks?

A tenter is a frame on which cloth is stretched during manufacture, so that it may dry evenly. The frame is outfitted with sharp hooks or bent nails that hold the cloth stretched. These hooks, you will not be surprised to learn, are called tenterhooks. Cloth-stretching being outside of most people's range of experience these days, tenterhook is rarely found except in the figurative expression on tenterhooks, meaning 'in a state of uneasy suspense or painful anxiety'.

What are the synonyms for eager?

keen, enthusiastic, avid, fervent, ardent, motivated,wholehearted, dedicated, committed, earnest, anxious, impatient, longing, yearning, wishing,hoping, hopeful; on the edge of one's seat, on tenterhooks, on pins and needles; informal itching, gagging, dying

What is a tenter yard?

A tenter yard is an area where cloth was traditionally stretched out on tenterhooks to dry and set the fabric's shape. This process ensured that the fabric was taut and even before further processing. Tenter yards were commonly used in the textile industry.

What does it mean Keep on Tender Hooks?

The phrase on tenterhooks means in a condition of (anxious) suspense.For its origins and development, here is a paraphrase of the information as laid out in the on line OED:A tenteris a wooden framework on which cloth is stretched after being milled, so that it may set or dry evenly and without shrinking. Thus a tenterhookis a form of hook (sometimes a bent nail), a number of which are set in a close row along the upper and lower bar of a tenter, by which the edges of the cloth are firmly held. The metaphorical use of the tenterhook means something that is stretched or strained; and by extension something that causes suffering or painful suspense.The word was used in various phrases, such as to put, set, strain, stretch on the tenterhooks: to strain, distort the sense of (words); to strain (conscience, truth, authority, credit, etc.) beyond the proper, normal, or natural extent, limit, or scope; to put a strain on (a faculty, power, or capacity). None of these are commonly found in modern use.

What is the origin of the expression 'on tenterhooks'?

It comes from one of the processes of making woollen cloth. After it had been woven, the cloth still contained oil from the fleece, mixed with dirt. It was cleaned in a fulling mill, but then it had to be dried carefully or it would shrink and crease. So the lengths of wet cloth were stretched on wooden frames, and left out in the open for some time. This allowed them to dry and straightened their weave. These frames were the tenters, and the tenter hooks were the metal hooks used to fix the cloth to the frame. At one time, it would have been common in manufacturing areas to see fields full of these frames (older English maps sometimes marked an area as a tenter-field). So it was not a huge leap of the imagination to think of somebody on tenterhooks as being in an state of anxious suspense, stretched like the cloth on the tenter. The tenters have gone, but the meaning has survived. Tenter comes from the Latin tendere, to stretch, via a French intermediate. The word has been in the language since the fourteenth century, and on tenters soon after became a phrase meaning painful anxiety. The exact phrase on tenterhooks seems first to have been used by Tobias Smollett in Roderick Random in 1748.

What has the author Suzannah Dunn written?

Suzannah Dunn has written: 'Venus Flaring' 'Commencing Our Descent' 'The queen of subtleties' -- subject(s): Confectioners, Fiction, History 'Darker days than usual' 'Blood sugar' 'The sixth wife' -- subject(s): Fiction, History, OverDrive, Historical Fiction 'Blood Sugar (Flamingo Original)' 'Tenterhooks'

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