tent [ME] Tent goes back to Latin tendere ‘stretch’, since early tents were made of skins or cloth stretched on poles. It is also the source of tense [L17th] in the sense ‘stretched, tight’, and tension [M16th] first found as a medical term for the condition or feeling of being physically strained. To be on tenterhooks [LME] is to be in a state of nervous suspense. A tenter [LME], from the same Latin root as tent, is a frame on which fabric can be held taut so that it does not shrink while drying or being manufactured, and tenterhooks were the hooks or bent nails used to fasten woollen cloth in position. This tightening procedure had obvious appeal as an image for person in difficulties or suspense, at first on tenters and later on tenterhooks. The phrase has survived long after real tenterhooks disappeared.