Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Pulled or drawn tight; not slack. See Synonyms at tight.
- adj. Strained; tense: nerves taut with anxiety.
- adj. Kept in trim shape; neat and tidy.
- adj. Marked by the efficient, sparing, or concise use of something, such as language or detail: a taut movie script.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Tight; tense; not slack: as, a taut line.
- Hence In good shape or condition; properly ordered; prepared against emergency; tidy; neat.
Wiktionary
- adj. Tight; under tension, as in a rope or bow string.
- adj. Experiencing stress or anxiety.
- adj. Containing only relevant parts, brief and controlled.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. (Naut.) Tight; stretched; not slack; -- said esp. of a rope that is tightly strained.
- adj. Snug; close; firm; secure.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. subjected to great tension; stretched tight
- adj. pulled or drawn tight
Etymologies
- From Middle English, past participle of tow (Wiktionary)
- Middle English tohte, distended, perhaps ultimately from Old English togian, to drag; see tow1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Kira's face appeared again, her expression taut with an agonized fury.”
“The nose, while still a bit taut, is spicy, with ginger, ripe pear and minerals.”
“The overall look could be described as taut and futuristic.”
The Guardian: Paris fashion week turns to Lady Gaga – and a quiet Belgian
“Kunzru seamlessly switches back and forth between two parallel narratives - the first of Carver's radical past, the second of his increasingly desperate attempts to prevent it catching up with him - ratcheting up the tension in taut, hard-edged prose.”
“(To work the skin, hold the skin taut and pull it back and forth over a the edge of a board.)”
“The idea is to pull the skin taut, so the face looks smoother and more youthful.”
“Spread the skin taut and position the needle at a 90 degree angle.”
“Christos, his expression taut and irritated, had passed a hand across his eyes.”
“Accelerator Center (SLAC) in the USA, that the electron has a relative some 3 500 times heavier, which is called the taut”
“His expression was taut, a nerve twitching in his jaw while his searching gaze probed with a tearing earnestness.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘taut’.
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7thGradeWords
horde, doggedly, retina, frail, jovial, insidious, injudicious, brazen, tentative, hortle, adaver, benign and 91 more...
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Artistic words
Good for poetry, or just artistic on their own.
fluxus, gallant, kinetic, lurk, disengage, mist, agleam, voyeur, devoid, crimson, ebony, azure and 94 more...
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Film
jidaigeki, samurai, Kurosawa, action, comedy, drama, Bergman, Buñuel, surreal, rotoscope, melodrama, Cinerama and 333 more...
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The weird, the wonderful and the plai...
Loved for their ingenuity, an exact description, or simply for the pure joy of it.
acidulous, aprosdoketon, higgledy-piggledy, lexicographical, ninja, audacious, somnabulist, shivaree, amorphous, quidnunc, glib, melancholy and 353 more...
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Words from Blood Meridian
visage, affray, scullery, miasma, mirth, purlieu, tacit, benighted, wickiup, corral, amble, accoutre and 210 more...
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Curiosities
A Potpourri
progeny, ooh, meow, endearing, timepiece, touch of the crea..., meh, alarmist, taut, calligraphic, catchphrase, shinto and 6 more...
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This intriguing novel .... is a taut,...
Crimes committed by book reviewers. Terms here are culled shamelessly from a recent New York Times blog post, and the comments that it generated.
Seven Deadly Sins
See a...poignant, compelling, taut, lyrical, spare, eschew, limn, craft, nuanced, contrived, majestic, subtle and 52 more...
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Greg's List
precarious, transient, evanescence, impermanence, fugacity, transitoriness, volatility, caducity, span, interregnum, effervescent, mine and 63 more...
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essbunny@gmail.com's list
Intrigued by these words...
sphincter, blush, flume, shingle, spurt, pulp, precious, squeal, zest, zeal, cherish, fervor and 35 more...
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moreover and apropos of nothing
l'aspirateur
esprit
coquillage
treble
loquacious
verbose
aristocracy
aristo
aristocrat
aristocratic
antwerp
implore
exudein situ, frequency, fluent, counterpoint, no admittance, trespass, canvas, caravan, rapture, tendril, sonicity, succor and 25 more...
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capitalcreative's Words
deviltry, visceral, cassanova, assuage, genesis, hot minute, osmosis, wistful, sublime, loathe, farfetched, newfangled and 283 more...
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Reading Vocab
ulterior, warrant, syllogism, precious, impiety, maroon, aigrette, batiste, topsy-turvy ago, midnight crush, cantankerous, slovenly and 180 more...
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Neww
specious, disdainfully, vehemently, in lieu of, dismissive, perpetual, preposterous, impasse, fathom, conversely, repugnant, clogged and 142 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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fifi
verbs Adj Adv noun
indulge, convene, solve, dissolve, prospect, prospective, allege, resolve, accountable, administration, amid, agenda and 407 more...
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eesome
Includes any intangible conceivable independently of Hom. Sap.
depthless, overspire, unsteady, thitherward, rile, munchable, covet, pastinaceous, mirtle, slonk, tink, inerrarable and 345 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for taut.
yarb A rather smutty word. Nov 30, 2007