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Vinony

tenseness

noun

  1. pronunciation of a vowel with narrower mouth width (often with raised tongue, less centralization, and longer duration); e.g. in English, /iː/ (tense) vs /ɪ/ (lax); /uː/ (tense) vs /ʊ/ (lax)
L329182 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

noun

Etymology: Etymology tree English tense Proto-Germanic *-inōną Proto-Indo-European *-dyé- Proto-Germanic *-atjaną Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Germanic *-þuz Proto-Germanic *-assuz Proto-Germanic *-inassuz Proto-West Germanic *-nassī Old English -nes Middle English -nesse English -ness English tenseness From tense + -ness.

  1. The characteristic of being tense.
  2. A particular vowel or consonant quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English.