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In rap music, even though the element of poetry is very strong, so is the element of the drum, the implication of the dance. Without the beat, its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous.
Archie Shepp

Meaning of "tenuous" in the English dictionary

Dictionary
DICTIONARY
section

ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD TENUOUS

From Latin tenuis.
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Etymology is the study of the origin of words and their changes in structure and significance.
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PRONUNCIATION OF TENUOUS

tenuous  [ˈtɛnjʊəs] play
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GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF TENUOUS

noun
adjective
verb
adverb
pronoun
preposition
conjunction
determiner
exclamation
Tenuous is an adjective.
The adjective is the word that accompanies the noun to determine or qualify it.

WHAT DOES TENUOUS MEAN IN ENGLISH?

tenuous

Doubt

Doubt, a status between belief and disbelief, involves uncertainty or distrust or lack of sureness of an alleged fact, an action, a motive, or a decision. Doubt brings into question some notion of a perceived "reality", and may involve delaying or rejecting relevant action out of concerns for mistakes or faults or appropriateness. Some definitions of doubt emphasize the state in which the mind remains suspended between two contradictory propositions and unable to assent to either of them. The concept of doubt covers a range of phenomena: one can characterise both deliberate questioning of uncertainties and an emotional state of indecision as "doubt".

Definition of tenuous in the English dictionary

The first definition of tenuous in the dictionary is insignificant or flimsy. Other definition of tenuous is slim, fine, or delicate. Tenuous is also diluted or rarefied in consistency or density.

WORDS THAT RHYME WITH TENUOUS


ambiguous
æmˈbɪɡjʊəs
arduous
ˈɑːdjʊəs
cernuous
ˈsɜːnjʊəs
conspicuous
kənˈspɪkjʊəs
contiguous
kənˈtɪɡjʊəs
continuous
kənˈtɪnjʊəs
deciduous
dɪˈsɪdjʊəs
discontinuous
ˌdɪskənˈtɪnjʊəs
disingenuous
ˌdɪsɪnˈdʒɛnjʊəs
ingenuous
ɪnˈdʒɛnjʊəs
noncontinuous
ˌnɒnkənˈtɪnjʊəs
promiscuous
prəˈmɪskjʊəs
sensuous
ˈsɛnsjʊəs
sinuous
ˈsɪnjʊəs
strenuous
ˈstrɛnjʊəs
subcontinuous
ˌsʌbkənˈtɪnjʊəs
sumptuous
ˈsʌmptjʊəs
tumultuous
tjuːˈmʌltjʊəs
unambiguous
ˌʌnæmˈbɪɡjʊəs
voluptuous
vəˈlʌptjʊəs

WORDS THAT BEGIN LIKE TENUOUS

tentless
tentlike
tentmaker
tentorial
tentorium
tentwise
tenue
tenues
tenuirostral
tenuis
tenuity
tenuously
tenuousness
tenurable
tenure
tenure track position
tenured
tenurial
tenurially
tenuto

WORDS THAT END LIKE TENUOUS

assiduous
congruous
contemptuous
discontiguous
fatuous
impetuous
incestuous
incongruous
inconspicuous
infructuous
mellifluous
noncontiguous
perspicuous
presumptuous
superfluous
tempestuous
tortuous
unctuous
vacuous
virtuous

Synonyms and antonyms of tenuous in the English dictionary of synonyms

SYNONYMS

SYNONYMS OF «TENUOUS»

The following words have a similar or identical meaning as «tenuous» and belong to the same grammatical category.
synonyms of tenuous

Translation of «tenuous» into 25 languages

TRANSLATOR
online translator

TRANSLATION OF TENUOUS

Find out the translation of tenuous to 25 languages with our English multilingual translator.
The translations of tenuous from English to other languages presented in this section have been obtained through automatic statistical translation; where the essential translation unit is the word «tenuous» in English.

Translator English - Chinese

脆弱的
1,325 millions of speakers

Translator English - Spanish

tenue
570 millions of speakers

English

tenuous
510 millions of speakers

Translator English - Hindi

कमजोर
380 millions of speakers
ar

Translator English - Arabic

ضعيفة
280 millions of speakers

Translator English - Russian

разреженной
278 millions of speakers

Translator English - Portuguese

tênue
270 millions of speakers

Translator English - Bengali

পাতলা
260 millions of speakers

Translator English - French

précaire
220 millions of speakers

Translator English - Malay

Lemah lembut
190 millions of speakers

Translator English - German

schwach
180 millions of speakers

Translator English - Japanese

不確かな
130 millions of speakers

Translator English - Korean

빈약한
85 millions of speakers

Translator English - Javanese

Tenuous
85 millions of speakers
vi

Translator English - Vietnamese

mỏng mảnh
80 millions of speakers

Translator English - Tamil

மெல்லிய
75 millions of speakers

Translator English - Marathi

सूक्ष्म
75 millions of speakers

Translator English - Turkish

ince
70 millions of speakers

Translator English - Italian

debole
65 millions of speakers

Translator English - Polish

wątpliwy
50 millions of speakers

Translator English - Ukrainian

розрідженій
40 millions of speakers

Translator English - Romanian

slabă
30 millions of speakers
el

Translator English - Greek

αδύναμη
15 millions of speakers
af

Translator English - Afrikaans

vaag
14 millions of speakers
sv

Translator English - Swedish

svagt
10 millions of speakers
no

Translator English - Norwegian

spinkel
5 millions of speakers

Trends of use of tenuous

TRENDS

TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «TENUOUS»

The term «tenuous» is quite widely used and occupies the 45.666 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.
0
100%
FREQUENCY
Quite widely used
79
/100
The map shown above gives the frequency of use of the term «tenuous» in the different countries.
Principal search tendencies and common uses of tenuous
List of principal searches undertaken by users to access our English online dictionary and most widely used expressions with the word «tenuous».

FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «TENUOUS» OVER TIME

The graph expresses the annual evolution of the frequency of use of the word «tenuous» during the past 500 years. Its implementation is based on analysing how often the term «tenuous» appears in digitalised printed sources in English between the year 1500 and the present day.

Examples of use in the English literature, quotes and news about tenuous

EXAMPLES

8 QUOTES WITH «TENUOUS»

Famous quotes and sentences with the word tenuous.
1
Larry David
Every relationship is just so tenuous and precarious.
2
Rupert Friend
My great grandparents are Scottish, and I have this very tenuous connection which I try and bump up whenever I can, because I'd much rather be Scottish than English.
3
David Javerbaum
As a Jew reading about Jesus, I thought, 'He's a pretty good guy.' It's the same conclusion Monty Python drew in 'Life of Brian' - if people actually live what he did, it would be a pretty good world. But Jesus and Christianity have a tenuous relationship at best.
4
Janna Levin
I would say the connection between art and science is very tenuous for me. It's just that I'm interested in both. I don't think that my interest in art affects the kind of science that I do.
5
Ken Lucas
The Bush administration also was not straightforward about the intelligence it had, releasing tenuous information that fit its goal of attacking Iraq. I feel deceived.
6
Archie Shepp
In rap music, even though the element of poetry is very strong, so is the element of the drum, the implication of the dance. Without the beat, its commercial value would certainly be more tenuous.
7
Phoebe Snow
My life was very tenuous last year. My daughter's death, in March in 2007, was unexpected. It was a shock. I didn't know if I'd survive it.
8
Liz Williams
I've written a detective series myself, set in an imaginary, and slightly futuristic, Chinese city. The novels have an extremely tenuous relationship with the real world, since the hero is the city's Hell and ends up with a sidekick who is a demon.

10 ENGLISH BOOKS RELATING TO «TENUOUS»

Discover the use of tenuous in the following bibliographical selection. Books relating to tenuous and brief extracts from same to provide context of its use in English literature.
1
Tenuous Chapel
Tuckey's award-winning first book of poems, "Tenuous Chapel, " was chosen by Charles Simic.
Melissa Tuckey, 2013
2
The History of the Central Brooks Range: Gaunt Beauty, ...
Supplemented with detailed descriptions by Robert Marshall, The History of the Central Brooks Range is further enhanced by over 150 beautiful full-color illustrations—from early exploration to the creation of the Gates of the Arctic ...
William E. Brown, 2007
3
Middletown Jews: The Tenuous Survival of an American Jewish ...
What did it mean to be a Jew in Muncie? That is the issue that this book seeks to answer. The Jewish experience in Muncie reflects what many similar communities experienced in hundreds of Middletowns across the midwest.
Dan Rottenberg, 1997
4
Tenuous Legitimacy: The Administrative State, the ...
The public administration literature is inundated with books and articles despairing about the legitimacy crisis in the field.
Shelly L. Peffer, 2008
5
Individuals and Society in Mycenaean Pylos
... 34.1 Ub 1318.3 Certain a-ta-no Vn 130.7 Fn 50.3 Probable a3-ki-e-u Vn 130.4 Jn 605.10 Probable e-ri-we-ro Vn 130.9 Un 1320.7 Possible ke-sa-do-ro Vn 130.1 An 435.17 Tenuous ko-do Vn 130.11 Ea 71,Ea 754, Ea 803,Ea 824 Tenuous ...
Dimitri Nakassis, 2013
6
Tenuous
The story follows a pastor's kid from idyllic childhood into the rugged terrain of the Rockies as an adventurous young man and finally into the coal mines where he confronts the same demons that nearly destroyed his father.
S. K. Badgett, 2012
7
Wave Propagation and Scattering in Random Media
CHAPTER 8 D APPROXIMATE SOLUTIONS FOR TENUOUS MEDIUM In Chapter 7 we developed a general transport theory of wave propagation in the presence of random particles and obtained the equation of transfer and integral ...
Akira Ishimaru, 1999
8
Europa's Tenuous Atmosphere
Jupiter's icy moon Europa is bombarded by radiation that erodes the surface, launching molecules into a very thin "atmosphere.
Timothy A. Cassidy, 2008
9
Troubled Waters: Religion, Ethics, and the Global Water Crisis
CHAPTER. FIVE. A. Tenuous. Relationship: Human. Need. and. Water. Resources. The previous chapter outlined the many threats to water from pollution around the world waterways, all brought about through human activities. We briefly ...
Gary Chamberlain, 2008
10
A Tenuous Thread
With Christian attending art school in Paris and making a name for himself as a sculptor of functional art, and Solange now expecting their first child, it seems that a happy, fulfilling life is assured for the unlikely couple, despite ...
Alberta L. Mason, 2013

10 NEWS ITEMS WHICH INCLUDE THE TERM «TENUOUS»

Find out what the national and international press are talking about and how the term tenuous is used in the context of the following news items.
1
Antidepressant link to rare newborn disorder is tenuous, study shows
The link between antidepressant use by pregnant mothers and the development of a serious respiratory condition in newborn babies is far more tenuous than ... «Al Jazeera America, Jun 15»
2
New Mobile bankruptcy judge knows tenuous line between 'survival …
Henry A. Callaway receives his robe with the help of his wife Emily C. Callaway during his investiture as United States Bankruptcy Judge for the Southern District ... «AL.com, May 15»
3
Labour Leader Ed Miliband in Tenuous Position After UK Election
LONDON—Five years ago, Ed Miliband faced harsh criticism for derailing the political career of his brother David by challenging and defeating him in a race to ... «Wall Street Journal, May 15»
4
Sun's tenuous outer tendrils revealed in spectacular movies from …
New and exciting extreme ultraviolet views of the Sun's high corona from ESA's PROBA2 mission reveal mysteriously beautiful, tenuous structure extending ... «Phys.Org, Apr 15»
5
Royal baby: The most tenuous PR campaigns surrounding the birth …
Whatever feelings the imminent arrival of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's baby has inspired in you, it might have encouraged you to spend money without ... «The Independent, Apr 15»
6
Truce tenuous as Ukraine leader tackles economy, oligarchs
12 is tenuous, with each side accusing the other of violations and the death toll still rising in a year-long conflict that has killed more than 6,100, and most people ... «Reuters, Apr 15»
7
Arm jumps on tenuous bid hopes
With takeover fever gripping the market, excitable traders latched on to a dubious rumour and chased Arm Holdings higher on hopes Apple was lining up a ... «Telegraph.co.uk, Apr 15»
8
US District Court evidence shows tenuous friendship between …
Luzander Montoya is on trial in U.S. District Court for selling heroin after getting arrested in a series of raids in Holyoke in March of 2013, shown here. «MassLive.com, Apr 15»
9
Food court, not one tenuous menu, on 617 Main horizon
Food court, not one tenuous menu, on 617 Main horizon. Sinatra seeking vendors to complete fresh concept. Perfetto, which offered fine Italian dining, was latest ... «Buffalo News, Apr 15»
10
Job status tenuous for Arizona State's Herb Sendek ahead of AD …
Multiple sources told Sporting News his position was tenuous following the Sun Devils' departure from the NIT in a Sunday game at Richmond. Early Tuesday ... «SportingNews.com, Mar 15»

REFERENCE
« EDUCALINGO. Tenuous [online]. Available <https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/tenuous>. Apr 2024 ».
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