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suspenseful

suspenseful

17 4.8
Making you feel nervous and unsure about what will happen
  • adjective
  • /səˈspɛnsfəl/
translation icon : tenso
  • At the inn, one suspenseful encounter after another holds the interest of the reader.

And in order for us for that question to kind of be dramatic and suspenseful, we need conflict.

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Examples

  • Stories can be funny, suspenseful, exciting, and thought-provoking.

    Academic text (2006)
  • But what are the mechanics to actually creating a suspenseful scene, chapter, or novel?

    Blog text (8)
  • Just think how much more suspenseful it would be around here today...

    Blog text (33)
  • It's basically like a mini short film with a suspenseful plot and everything.

    Blog text (33)
  • The tone of this story is both humorous and suspenseful.

    Academic text (2011)
  • The world depicted in the book is fascinating, and the plot is a suspenseful and often hilarious adventure.

    Blog text (4)
  • I chose it because it was billed in the jacket copy (correctly) as a suspenseful mystery story.

    Academic text (1999)
  • Starting with Scott Rosenberg, who mentioned the amazingly suspenseful scene in Se7en.

    Blog text (30)
  • From the steamy, suspenseful novel Killjoy by Julie Garwood.

    Fiction book (2002)
  • The movie was so suspenseful that I couldn't look away from the screen.

Synonyms

breathless
vssuspenseful
20 4.1

Very exciting or tense and causing strong surprise

keeps people in suspense without requiring a physical reaction
nail-biting
vssuspenseful
  • Informal
3 4.2

Making you feel very nervous and excited while you wait to see what happens

creates suspense without necessarily causing strong anxiety
suspensive
vssuspenseful
  • Literature
8.1

Making people feel uncertain and wait to see what happens

is identical in meaning but differs only in word form
cliffhanging
vssuspenseful
5.5

Causing strong suspense by leaving the result unknown

keeps people in uncertainty without requiring unresolved endings
grippy
vssuspenseful
  • UK
7.0

Exciting in a way that keeps you wanting to know more

creates uncertainty or anticipation rather than only holding attention

Antonyms

3 3.2

Not interesting or exciting

Compounds

A feeling of excitement and worry about what will happen next

How Suspenseful

thrilling
102 3.6
suspenseful
17 4.8
tense
310 3.6
uneasy
98 3.2

Surface Forms

suspenseful positive
suspensefuler comparative
suspensefulest superlative

Morphology

suspenseful = suspense (transparent) = suspense + ful

The adjective is formed by adding the productive suffix '-ful' to the noun 'suspense', yielding 'full of or characterized by suspense', which is directly derivable by learners.

Etymology

Suspenseful comes from suspend, which itself comes from the parts sub- 'under' and pendere 'to hang', giving the picture of something 'hung up' in the air. So a suspenseful story 'hangs' you like that, making you wait, feel unsure, and want to know what happens next.