Real Dictionary

tense
adjective: A tense situation or period of time is one that makes people anxious, because they do not know what is going to happen next.
adjective: If you are tense, you are anxious and nervous and cannot relax.

tense in American English 1
stretched tight; strained; taut
adjective: stretched tight, as a cord, fiber, etc.; drawn taut; rigid

tense in American English 2
a characteristic of verbs that indicates the time of the action or state of being that a verb expresses; also, an analytic category based on this characteristic
noun: a category of verbal inflection that serves chiefly to specify the time of the action or state expressed by the verb

tense in British English 1
adjective: stretched or stressed tightly; taut or rigid

tense in British English 2
noun: a category of the verb or verbal inflections, such as present, past, and future, that expresses the temporal relations between what is reported in a sentence and the time of its utterance