taut

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See also: taüt, taut-, ta ut, and þaut

English[edit]

WOTD – 6 January 2020

Etymology[edit]

The adjective is derived from Middle English taught [and other forms], Early Middle English tohte, towehte (“strained, stretched; distended; tight; firm”),[1] probably from tough, touth, touʒth, toʒt (“powerful, strong; fierce, violent; not tender, tough; hardy, resilient; steadfast, stout; difficult to do or endure”)[2] and possibly influenced by togen, towen, past participle of ten (“to extend, stretch out; to drag, haul, pull, tow, tug”) (modern English tee (“(obsolete) to draw, lead; to draw away; to go, proceed”)), or directly from its etymon Old English tēon (“to drag, draw, pull”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dewk- (“to draw, pull”))[1] The word may be related to thight (“(dialectal) compact, dense; close-fitting, tight”) and tight;[3] and is cognate with Scots tacht, taght (“taut”).

The verb is probably derived from the adjective.

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

taut (comparative tauter, superlative tautest)

  1. (also figuratively) Under tension, like a stretched bowstring, rope, or sail; tight.
    Synonyms: nonslack, stretched, tense, tensioned; see also Thesaurus:taut
    Antonyms: untaut; see also Thesaurus:loose
    • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Ebb-tide Runs”, in Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC, part V (My Sea Adventure), page 185:
      The hawser was as taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All around the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream.
    • 1912, Roald Amundsen, “The End of the Winter”, in A. G. Chater, transl., The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the “Fram,” 1910–1912 [...] Translated from the Norwegian [...] In Two Volumes, volume I, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 350:
      Every piece of binding is first carefully examined and tested; then it is put on, cautiously and accurately. Every turn is hauled taut, taking care that it is in its right place. [...] A sledge journey of the kind we had before us is a serious undertaking, and the work has to be done seriously.
    • 1914, Constance Lytton, Jane Warton [pseudonym; Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton], “My Conversion”, in Prisons & Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, page 19:
      After some moments of interchanging messages with the leaders on the platform, during which the suspense in the hall was tremendously taut, the police left saying that the women arrested would have to report themselves at Bow Street the following morning.
    • 1959 March, “Talking of Trains: The L.M.S. Beyer-Garratts”, in Trains Illustrated, page 122:
      With an engine of the weight of a Garratt heading a long heavy coal train over such a road great skill in handling was necessary; not only by the enginemen but by the guard; the secret, of course, was to keep the couplings as taut as possible throughout the train to avoid severe "snatches".
    • 1971, Yoram Kaniuk, “The Barking”, in [Lazarre] Seymour Simckes, transl., Adam Resurrected: Translated from the Hebrew, New York, N.Y.: Atheneum Books, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, 2008, →ISBN, page 105:
      The cord goes taut, tauter, tautest, till down she trips and Adam has a good laugh.
    • 2007, Anthony Neilson, The Wonderful World of Dissocia, London: Methuen Drama, →ISBN; republished London, New York, N.Y.: Bloomsbury Methuen Drama, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015, →ISBN, Act I, page 25:
      Lisa Jones – a woman in her thirties – sits cross-legged onstage, absent-mindedly tuning the high E-string on an acoustic guitar. She tunes the string up and up until it reaches the correct note – and then continues on past it. [...] Higher and higher the note, the string growing ever more taut, the fretboard beginning to tremble under the strain, the tension rising – but she still winds the tuning peg, up and up and up and up until … … the string snaps!
    • 2015 January, Win Blevins, Meredith Blevins, “Apocalypso Now”, in Moonlight Water (A Forge Book), New York, N.Y.: Tom Doherty Associates, →ISBN, page 316:
      As Red played the intro, he allowed himself a passing glance at her. She was at the back of the crowd, face taut.
  2. (of a body, muscles, etc.) Not flabby; firm, toned; (of a person) having a lean, strong body.
    • 2014, Erich Maria Remarque, translated by Michael Hofmann, The Promised Land: Translated from the German, London: Vintage Books, →ISBN, page 285:
      I watched him from the side as he strode along. His walk was quite different; his face too looked tauter.
    • 2014 July, Miles J. Unger, “The Giant”, in Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 108:
      In a sense, Michelangelo's David is everything his Bacchus was not: firmly in control of himself while the god of wine was teetering on the brink of dissolution; his senses heightened while Bacchus's are dulled. Where one is taut, the other is flaccid. David's toned, athletic body contrasts with Bacchus's effeminate form, illustrating the dichotomy in Michelangelo's mind between the active masculine force and the passive feminine.
    • 2015, Lindsay McKenna, “[Hidden Heart] Chapter 7”, in Lindsay McKenna, Merline Lovelace, edited by Patience Bloom, Course of Action: Crossfire (Harlequin Romantic Suspense; 1853), Don Mills, Ont.: Harlequin Books, →ISBN, page 111:
      The silky sarong fell away, pooling around her hips with a whisper. Her nipples were pink and taut, the rest of her naked body a soft glow as moonlight flowed through the living room.
  3. (of music, writing, etc.) Containing only relevant parts; brief and controlled.
    Synonyms: concise, crisp, terse, tight; see also Thesaurus:concise
    Antonyms: see Thesaurus:verbose
  4. (figuratively) Experiencing anxiety or stress.
    Synonyms: nonrelaxed, strained, tense, unrelaxed
  5. (nautical, of a sailor, a ship, etc.) Neat and well-disciplined; (by extension) efficient and in order.
    • 1832 September, John Wilson, W[illia]m Maginn, J[ohn] G[ibson] Lockhart, James Hogg [et al.], Noctes Ambrosianæ […], volume V, number LXII, New York, N.Y.: Redfield […], published 1854, →OCLC, page 76:
      [O]ur friend was a hearty toper in the days of his Whiggery, but no sooner turned one of the tautest of Tories, than he took to the tea-pot. It seems a thing against nature.
    • 1863, Anne Bowman, “The Adventures of Clever Jack”, in Edmund Routledge, editor, Routledge’s Every Boy’s Annual. An Original Miscellany of Entertaining Literature, London, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, Warne, & Routledge, […], →OCLC, chapter I (Jack Determines to be His Own Master), page 109:
      [T]he astonished boy looked round him, and wondered if this could really be the trim, taut ship he had read of. The deck was so encumbered with foul-smelling casks, coils of rope, and masses of rubbish, that there was no room to move; and Jack felt at a loss where to fly to be out of the way of the busy, swearing crew.
    • 1872, John Greenleaf Whittier, “The Sisters”, in The Pennsylvania Pilgrim, and Other Poems, Boston, Mass.: James R[ipley] Osgood and Company, late Ticknor & Fields, and Fields, Osgood, & Co., →OCLC, page 103:
      In the tautest schooner that ever swam / He rides at anchor at Anisquam.
    • 1878, Arthur Hamilton, chapter XXI, in Lawrence Loftewalde. A Tale. [...] In Three Volumes, volume III, London: Samuel Tinsley & Co., […], →OCLC, page 271:
      You've secured the neatest, trimmest, tautest little craft that ever man could wish to be commander of.
    • 2004, Allan Kozinn, “Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra; Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, and Hungarian Sketches: Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Fritz Reiner, Conducting […]”, in Classical Music: A Critic’s Guide to the 100 Most Important Recordings (The New York Times Essential Library), New York, N.Y.: Times Books; Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, page 259:
      George Szell took up the reins of the Cleveland Orchestra in 1946, and made it one of the world's tautest, most disciplined ensembles, ideal in the classical and early romantic repertory.
  6. (oenology) Strong; uncompromising.
    • 2018 March 8, Eric Asimov, “Bubbles, with joy: Pétillant Naturel’s triumphant return”, in The New York Times‎[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 13 November 2019:
      Yet the 2016 Éxilé rosé from Lise et Bertrand Jousset in the Loire Valley, made mostly of gamay, was yeasty let light and lithe, while the 2016 Indigeno from Ancarani in Emilia-Romagna, made of trebbiano, was taut and earthy.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

of a person: having a lean, strong body

See also[edit]

Verb[edit]

taut (third-person singular simple present tauts, present participle tauting, simple past and past participle tauted)

  1. (transitive) To make taut; to tauten, to tighten.
    • 1917 August, The Road-maker, volume 2, number 5, Port Huron, Mich.: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 18, column 2:
      The machine is operated by a double friction drum hoist. From the rear drum a steel cable, called the tension cable, leads to a set of fall blocks attached to the mast pole. These blocks afford a means for slackening and tauting the track cable, one end of which is supported by the fall blocks and the other fastened to a "dead man" or other suitable anchorage planted in the bank of the pit opposite the dumping point.
    • 1920 May, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, “The Cut-Glass Bowl”, in Flappers and Philosophers, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, →OCLC, part IV, page 153:
      The cold wind blew in again through the front door, and with a desperate, frantic energy Evelyn stretched both her arms around the bowl. She must be quick—she must be strong. She tightened her arms until they ached, tauted the thin strips of muscle under her soft flesh, and with a mighty effort raised it and held it.
    • 2010, Gary Allen, “Piggyback”, in The Next Room, Belfast: Lapwing Publications, →ISBN, page 16:
      Men come down to the bare nail / suffer or inflict pain // life demands degradation / tauts the thread that hangs us all: [...]
    • 2016, J. Vogelsang, G. Huber, T[heodoros] Triantafyllidis, T. Bender, “Interpretation of Vibratory Pile Penetration Based on Digital Image Correlation”, in Theodoros Triantafyllidis, editor, Holistic Simulation of Geotechnical Installation Processes: Benchmarks and Simulations (Lecture Notes in Applied and Computational Mechanics; 80), Cham, Switzerland, Heidelberg: Springer International Publishing, →DOI, →ISBN, →ISSN, section 2.3 (Instrumentation and Data Acquisition), pages 35–36:
      The global penetration is measured with a potentiometric displacement sensor connected to an impeller. A thin steel cable is fastened with a spring to the vibrator and runs over the rim of the impeller. On the other side, a counterweight of 0.4 kg tauts the cable, [...].

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “tought, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  2. ^ “tough, adj.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.
  3. ^ “taut, adj.”, in OED Online Paid subscription required⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, June 2014; “taut, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Anagrams[edit]

Big Nambas[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

taut

  1. Big Nambas
    V'ənen taut = The Big Nambas Language

References[edit]

Finnish[edit]

Noun[edit]

taut

  1. nominative plural of tau

Anagrams[edit]

German[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Verb[edit]

taut

  1. inflection of tauen:
    1. third-person singular present
    2. second-person plural present
    3. plural imperative

Hungarian[edit]

Etymology[edit]

tau +‎ -t

Pronunciation[edit]

  • IPA(key): [ˈtɒut]
  • Hyphenation: ta‧ut

Noun[edit]

taut

  1. accusative singular of tau

Icelandic[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

taut n (genitive singular tauts, no plural)

  1. muttering, mumbling
    Synonyms: tuldur, muldur, uml

Declension[edit]

declension of taut
n-s singular
indefinite definite
nominative taut tautið
accusative taut tautið
dative tauti tautinu
genitive tauts tautsins

Related terms[edit]

Norwegian Bokmål[edit]

Verb[edit]

taut

  1. (non-standard since 2005) past tense of tyte

Norwegian Nynorsk[edit]

Verb[edit]

taut

  1. past tense of tyta

Veps[edit]

Etymology[edit]

Borrowed from Old East Slavic *долто (*dolto). Cognates include Finnish taltta.

Noun[edit]

taut

  1. chisel

Declension[edit]

Inflection of taut (inflection type 5/sana)
nominative sing. taut
genitive sing. tautan
partitive sing. tautad
partitive plur. tautoid
singular plural
nominative taut tautad
accusative tautan tautad
genitive tautan tautoiden
partitive tautad tautoid
essive-instructive tautan tautoin
translative tautaks tautoikš
inessive tautas tautoiš
elative tautaspäi tautoišpäi
illative tautaha
tautha 		tautoihe
adessive tautal tautoil
ablative tautalpäi tautoilpäi
allative tautale tautoile
abessive tautata tautoita
comitative tautanke tautoidenke
prolative tautadme tautoidme
approximative I tautanno tautoidenno
approximative II tautannoks tautoidennoks
egressive tautannopäi tautoidennopäi
terminative I tautahasai
tauthasai 		tautoihesai
terminative II tautalesai tautoilesai
terminative III tautassai —
additive I tautahapäi
tauthapäi 		tautoihepäi
additive II tautalepäi tautoilepäi
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