tens

• Rhymes: -ɛnz

tens

1. plural of ten

tens pl (plural only)

1. An inexact quantity, typically understood to be between 20 and 100.

   Our houses are tens of meters apart, so we don't have to worry about noise from our neighbours.

   tens of thousands of voters

2. (poker slang) A pair of tens.
3. The second decade of a century: the 1910s, 2010s, etc. The teens, the oneties.

• ENTs, NEST, Sten, ents, nest, nets, sent, sent., snet

Borrowed from Latin tēnsus. Compare the inherited doublet tes.

tens (feminine tensa, masculine plural tensos, feminine plural tenses)

1. tense, taut

   Antonym: lax

tens

1. second-person singular present indicative form of tenir

• “tens” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “tens”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2023
• “tens” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “tens” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From Old French tens, tans, from Latin tempus.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɛns/

tens (plural tenses or tens)

1. (grammar) tense

• English: tense

• “tens(e, n.(1).”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

From Latin tempus.

tens m (oblique plural tens, nominative singular tens, nominative plural tens)

1. Alternative form of tans
   • 13th century, Unknown, La Vie de Saint Laurent, page 1, column 2, line 16:

     Ki trop i prent son tens i pert

     He who spends too much of his time on it suffers as a result

From Latin tenēs. Cognate with Galician tes and Spanish tienes. Also compare with vens.

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): ['tɐ̃j̃ʃ] invalid IPA characters ('), replace ' with ˈ
• Rhymes: (Brazil) -ẽj̃s, (Rio de Janeiro) -ẽj̃ʃ, (Portugal) -ɐ̃j̃ʃ
• Hyphenation: tens

tens

1. second-person singular present indicative of ter

tens

1. indefinite genitive singular of ten.

• Sten, sent, sten