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Glite Dictionary
to tense up

to tense up

9 3.7
To make your muscles tight when you feel nervous
  • phrasal verb
  • /tɛns ʌp/
  • Informal
translation icon : tensarse
  • Just like anybody else, aged people tense up when they start to fall.
  • muscles tense up
  • body tense up
  • shoulders tense up

Every part of me started to tense up.

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Examples

  • My shoulders tense up when I travel.

    Private Parts (1997)

  • If you keep tensing up, you're gonna sink.

    The To Do List (2013)

  • But seriously, next time try not to tense up.

    Due Date (2010)

  • I turned to hold him, but I could feel his body tense up, so I stepped back.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • And don't tense up, because that only makes it worse.

    Before I Fall (2017)

  • Don't tense up now, honey.

    Superman III (1983)

  • The rest of his body seemed to tense up when he made certain gestures and relax when he made others.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Up until eight months afterwards, if I heard a siren anywhere, I would just tense up in my shoulders.

  • You're all tensed up and you don't even know it.

    Fiction book (1996)

  • Before the big presentation, I always tense up and have to take deep breaths.

Synonyms

to tense
vsto tense up
9 4.0

To make the body or muscles tight and unable to relax

focuses on feeling nervous and unable to relax rather than physical tightening
to get the wind up
vsto tense up
  • UK
1 9.3

To suddenly feel nervous or worried

does not always happen suddenly and may build up

Antonyms

to relax
∞ 1.0

To feel less nervous and more calm

How Tense

to panic
272 2.3
to tense up
  • Informal
9 3.7
anxiousness
3 3.8
uneasy
98 3.2
to relax
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

tense up infinitive
tensed up past
tensed up past participle
tense up present participle
tenses up third person singular

Morphology

tense + up

The meaning 'to become or make someone tense' is directly derivable from 'tense' (to become tight/strained) combined with the particle 'up', which in English commonly signals an increase or change of state. This verb+particle composition follows a standard, productive pattern that a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily interpret.

Etymology

Tense up comes from the image of muscles becoming tense and tightening, as if they pull up inside the body when we feel fear or stress. So, to tense up means 'to become nervous or unable to relax'.