What a verb ending may indicate

Usage examples of tense.

Though she was pleasant and responded any time he essayed a remark, Caleb sensed Alleluia growing tense or at least very focused, and be eventually gave up all attempts at conversation.

The game, slow and subtle, tense and attenuated, stretched from morning to afternoon and then to evening.

Kotara tensed, for she recognized the fiend for what it was, a knight banneret in the hosts of darkness.

Batty and Carob perched on his shoulder, Batty tense and straight, Carob hunched as if in thought.

Shannon kept glancing uncertainly from Brewster to the chamberpot and back again, her body tense, poised as if she were ready to either strike or flee.

This time Maslin was ready for her because he had seen her tense as she prepared to launch herself around the rock, and he was right behind her as they exploded around the curve in the trail.

Though not an exceptionally tall woman, to Maia she seemed to rise above her like a tree, multifold, instinct with a quality of pliant, tense motion.

I also found out that overtired children are often too tense to sleep.

Everyone from Ardiff on down had his own opinion on whether or not it was true, none of them could prove their opinion to anyone else, and the entire ship was about as tense as an overwound throwbow.

But as they closed upon us, I became aware of their heavy breathing, the creak of their tense bones, the pacy, panicked pounding of their hearts.

The musculature was tense and boardlike and the abdominal contents were difficult to palpate because of this, but the whole area was tender to the touch.

Roy Parrell was staring straight at the prosecutor, too tense to make a move while Goodling held that ready gun.

The passive is formed by the addition of the participle preterit to the different tenses of the verb to be, which must therefore be here exhibited.

It is strong and steadfast, though, and in time is always victorious over its menial opposition, for what is history but the past tense of truth, and it is justly said that veritas numquam perit, truth never dies.

It was an important game to both teams, as they fought for a playoff berth, and a tense series of downs.