taut

Grasping a pair of dark grey trousers, it raised its upper body to stretch the fabric taut, before laying it flat and arranging it into neat halves.

From Barron's ● Jun. 11, 2026

Trunk, branches, leaves and night sky form an intricate pattern, creating the taut balance between image and abstract form that O’Keeffe was achieving in many of her paintings of the 1920s.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026

Sometimes I imagine the table, the net taut as a border fence.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 6, 2026

If Mr. Linklater, a well-established New York stage actor, cannot make Ben’s emotional dithering either original or believable, he at least brings a taut intensity to his performance.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 16, 2026

All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

With judicious trimming, particularly of the occasional puddle of expository or repetitive dialogue, the play would gain a tauter pace.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2025

The device, called CoolSculpting, was entering an already-crowded beauty industry selling flatter stomachs and tauter jawlines, but it had an advantage: a vaunted scientific pedigree.

From Seattle Times ● Apr. 17, 2023

His music looked back to the not-so-distant days of psychedelia and the Velvet Underground, but it was leaner, tauter, steelier.

From New York Times ● Jan. 29, 2023

All told, "Moon Knight" is an odd show in that it gives us characters and actors we'd love to spend more time with, albeit in tauter scenarios than the one presented here.

From Salon ● Mar. 30, 2022

And once more there was silence; and the expectancy, momentarily relaxed, was stretched again, tauter, tauter, almost to the tearing point.

From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

One of the tautest exchanges took place when Ose challenged Faulconer’s record on dealing with homelessness, a cornerstone of the former mayor’s campaign.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 4, 2021

Although it doesn’t rule out backup like horns and singers, “Look Now” channels Mr. Costello’s stylistic wanderings back into his tautest rock-band format.

From New York Times ● Sep. 12, 2018

Affleck bested Denzel Washington, who starred and directed in “Fences;” the look on his face when Affleck’s name was read speaks as forcefully as any of August Williams’ tautest phrases.

From Salon ● Feb. 27, 2017

I’m not suggesting you gather the family on Christmas week for this one, but this tautest of thrillers from the Coen Brothers won Best Picture for a reason.

From New York Times ● Dec. 1, 2016

Yet holds he them with tautest rein, That they may seize and entertain The glance that to their glance opposes, Like fiery honey sucked from roses.

From Poems Household Edition by Emerson, Ralph Waldo