tighten

«tighten» in Mova's school dictionary: To make something tighter or firmer: "Tighten the screw"… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 5 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

verb (tighten, tightens, tightened, tightening)

meaning for a pupil

1) To make something tighter or firmer: "Tighten the screw", "Tighten your shoelaces." tree →

2) To become tighter: "His grip tightened." tree →

3) To make rules stricter: "The school tightened the rules." tree →

sense in the lessons

In everyday life and safety, people tighten seat belts, helmet straps, bike bolts and screws. In design and technology, pupils tighten nuts with a spanner. Phrases: tighten up, tighten your belt (spend less money), tighten your grip.

examples

• Tighten your helmet strap before riding. tree →
• Dad tightened the wheel nuts on the car. tree →
• Tighten the lid so the jar does not leak. tree →
• The rope tightened as the boat pulled. tree →
• The rules were tightened after the accident. tree →
• Turn the screw clockwise to tighten it. tree →
• Rudy tightened it, and thus secured the bird alive. tree →

note

Regular verb: tighten, tightened. Opposite: "loosen". A rhyme to remember: "righty tighty, lefty loosey" (turning right, clockwise, usually tightens a screw). "Tighten your belt" means spend less money.

In the corpora

• In Atlanta, Tyrone's mom says, «We fixin' to tighten belts.
• Cramp is a muscle that suddenly tightens and won't let go, often a calf in the last tired minutes of a match.
• A lump in the throat when you hold back tears is the throat muscles tightening; it is an automatic stress reaction that fades.
• Disappointment can tighten the throat muscles as you hold back tears; it fades, especially once you're moving.
• When the diaphragm tightens and moves down, the chest gets bigger and air flows into the lungs.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «tighten» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.