Tensed Up

It was just another way of looking at folks and understanding them; he wouldn't see a body's shape or color, but he'd see whether they was sweating or hot or healthy or tensed-up. ❋ Card, Orson Scott (1989)

After a bit I deliberately loosened a few tensed-up muscles, and said, 'You won't find out that way. ❋ Francis, Dick (1979)

There was panic, or desperation, as well as fury and the will to live, to triumph no matter what the cost, in his tensed-up features, in his expression, as he screwed up his last powers of resistance. ❋ Simenon, Georges, 1903- (1963)

She was not afraid, but there rose in her a peculiar tensed-up feeling. ❋ Bertrand W. Sinclair (1926)

In such a tensed-up state as I cannot describe, nor, at this hour mentally reconstruct, I waited for the creaking of the stairs which should tell of the creature's descent. ❋ Sax Rohmer (1921)

Much of the work involves tensed-up muscles and deliberately odd shapes, but Miller seems capable of finding austere beauty in the unexpected and potentially grotesque. ❋ Unknown (2009)

Hence, Baba Farid, no less, is being chanted by my thirteen year old sibling; who is, put bluntly, a tensed-up workaholic who simply wants the highest score in every exam or test or assignment she's given. ❋ Unknown (2009)

The Maître d 'now tensed-up a bit, not knowing whether I would turn ugly and rude back to the bassid. ❋ Unknown (2009)

"It was a way to relax after you'd been all tensed-up for the ski race. ❋ Unknown (2009)