Etymology Explorer › English

Where does “tenseless” come from?

Tenseless derives from English tense, from Latin tensus, the past participle of Latin teneo, meaning to hold or stretch.

tenseless (English): Lacking grammatical tense

Definitions

  1. Lacking grammatical tense

Ancestry of “tenseless”, step by step

StepLanguageWordMeaning
1English-lessLacking ; without . Added usually to a noun to...
2Middle English-lesLacking ; without
3Turkish-lewith, shortened form of ile; by, shortened form...
4Turkishilewith; and
5Ottoman Turkishایله—
6Old Anatolian Turkishاِیلَه—
7Proto-Turkicbilewith, together, also
Every word from Proto-Turkic bile →