Like a fishing line after a bite

Usage examples of tautened.

The trucks of the carriage clattered as they ran back over the rocky surface and the rope breeching suddenly tautened and stretched as it absorbed the recoil and then thrust the carriage forward again a few inches.

Snubbing gently at the tautened cable, the pirate submarine swung round head to tide within two hundred yards of the Falmouth lugger owned by the redoubtable Cap'n Silas Porthoustoc.

Not daring to let go, they hung on, holding their breath until the iron chain tautened again, lifting them both waist high out of the water.

With the port propeller going hard astern, and her cables tautened like harp-strings, she began to swing into her former position.

The wind howled dismally through the tautened shrouds, and shrieked over the top of the tightly-strained bridge-screens, behind which bent the oilskin-clad officers and men who cursed the atmospheric conditions in no uncertain voices.

Through the glass Ramage saw her yards being trimmed, then she heeled more and the sails billowed and the canvas tautened as she caught a fresh breeze and came alive.

The line tautened and seamen eased the block and the heavier rope over the side and slowly, agonizingly slowly it seemed to Ramage, it began to rise as Aitken's men hauled away.

Slowly the sagging jackstay tautened, the men slowing down with the effort as the strain came on the anchor cables.