taut
adjective/tɔːt/
/tɔːt/
- stretched tightly
- taut violin strings
- Keep the rope taut.
- His skin was stretched taut across his cheekbones.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- be
- feel
- become
- …
- with
Questions about grammar and vocabulary?
Find the answers with Practical English Usage online, your indispensable guide to problems in English.
Join us
Join our community to access the latest language learning and assessment tips from Oxford University Press!
Definitions on the go
Look up any word in the dictionary offline, anytime, anywhere with the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.
Want to learn more?
Find out which words work together and produce more natural sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app.
- showing that you are anxious or tense
- a voice taut with anger
- Her face was taut and pale.
- Her body went as taut as a bowstring.
Oxford Collocations Dictionaryverbs- be
- feel
- become
- …
- with
- (of a person or their body) with hard muscles; not fat
- His body was solid and taut.
- (of a piece of writing, etc.) carefully written with no unnecessary parts in it
- a taut thriller
- the writer’s taut prose
Word OriginMiddle English tought ‘distended’, perhaps originally a variant of tough.
Check pronunciation:
taut
