Definitions for "Tenseness"
the physical condition of being stretched or strained; "it places great tension on the leg muscles"; "he could feel the tenseness of her body"
(psychology) a state of mental or emotional strain or suspense; "he suffered from fatigue and emotional tension"; "stress is a vasoconstrictor"
Tenseness is a term used in phonology to describe a particular vowel quality that is phonemically contrastive in many languages, including English. It has also occasionally been used to describe contrasts in consonants. Unlike most distinctive features, the feature [tense] can be interpreted only relatively, that is, in a language like English that contrasts (e.g. beat) and (e.g. bit), the former can be described as a tense vowel while the latter is a lax vowel.