taut
Example Sentences
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Its taut nylon cord was tied to a buoy, establishing what divers call a shot line, which they use to guide their descent into and ascent from the depths.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
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
Sometimes I imagine the table, the net taut as a border fence.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 6, 2026
A highlight of the fall theater season was Robert Icke’s gripping “Oedipus,” which reimagined Sophocles’ most famous tragedy as a taut drama about a contemporary political dynasty.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 12, 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
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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
Could “Lessons” have been a few instructions tauter?
From Washington Post ● Apr. 5, 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
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The strongest, tautest story in the collection is “The Haunting of Hajji Hotak,” again told in second person, this time from the perspective of a government surveillant.
From New York Times ● Jul. 19, 2022
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
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
The jib, mainsail, and gaff topsail are hauled up to their very tautest; finally, the cable is slipped, and then old Sandy for the first time looks around.
From Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 by Various
Vocabulary lists containing taut
List 4
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"Beowulf," Vocabulary from the epic poem
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The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
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