taut

adj

1. (also, figuratively)Under tension, like a stretched bowstring, rope, or sail; tight.

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “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".”

   “The cord goes taut, tauter, tautest, till down she trips and Adam has a good laugh.”

2. (usually)Not flabby; firm, toned; (of a person) having a lean, strong body.

   “I watched him from the side as he strode along. His walk was quite different; his face too looked tauter.”

   “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.”

   “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. (usually)Containing only relevant parts; brief and controlled.

   “If he curbs his swing a little and gets something crisper and tauter in his methods he may yet be very good.”

   “The superbly crafted suspense thriller that director Jonathan Demme has made from Thomas Harris's taut best-selling novel The Silence of the Lambs slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror.”

   “Quick action and dialogue create a taut story, although it is illustration that shapes the characters.”

   “Guitarist Jade Puget and vocalist Davey Havok have distilled AFI's strengths (a ferocious, post-hardcore rhythmic backbone; goth-tinctured, post-punky guitars; and Havok's desperate, dramatic croon) into 14 taut, hook-driven songs.”

4. (figuratively)Experiencing anxiety or stress.

   “His outward appearance was calm, but inside he was very taut.”

5. (usually)Neat and well-disciplined; (by extension) efficient and in order.

   “[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.”

   “[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.”

   “In the tautest schooner that ever swam / He rides at anchor at Anisquam.”

   “You've secured the neatest, trimmest, tautest little craft that ever man could wish to be commander of.”

   “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. Strong; uncompromising.

   “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.”

verb

1. (transitive)To make taut; to tauten, to tighten.

   “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.”

   “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.”

   “Men come down to the bare nail / suffer or inflict pain // life demands degradation / tauts the thread that hangs us all: [...]”

   “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, [...].”