tautadj/tɔːt/

• 1

  Of a body, muscle, etc., not flabby; firm, toned.

  • I watched him from the side as he strode along. His walk was quite different; his face too looked tauter.
  • In a sense, Michelangelo's David is everything his Bacchus was not: firmly in control of himself while the god of wine was teetering on the brink of dissolution; his senses heightened while Bacchus's are dulled. Where one is taut, the other is flaccid. David's toned, athletic body contrasts with Bacchus's effeminate form, illustrating the dichotomy in Michelangelo's mind between the active masculine force and the passive feminine.
• 2

  Of a person, having a lean, strong body.

• 3

  Of music, writing, etc., containing only relevant parts; brief and controlled.

  • If he curbs his swing a little and gets something crisper and tauter in his methods he may yet be very good.
  • The superbly crafted suspense thriller that director Jonathan Demme has made from Thomas Harris's taut best-selling novel The Silence of the Lambs slams you like a sudden blast of bone-chilling, pulse-pounding terror.
• 4

  Under tension, like a stretched bowstring, rope, or sail; tight.

  • The pressure pad which holds the film taut as it passes the reproducing light beam must apply just the right amount of pressure.
  • The hawser was as taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she pulled upon her anchor. All around the hull, in the blackness, the rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream.
• 5

  Experiencing anxiety or stress.

  • His outward appearance was calm, but inside he was very taut.
• 6

  nauticaltransportOf a sailor, ship, etc., neat and well-disciplined.

  • [O]ur friend was a hearty toper in the days of his Whiggery, but no sooner turned one of the tautest of Tories, than he took to the tea-pot. It seems a thing against nature.
  • [T]he astonished boy looked round him, and wondered if this could really be the trim, taut ship he had read of. The deck was so encumbered with foul-smelling casks, coils of rope, and masses of rubbish, that there was no room to move; and Jack felt at a loss where to fly to be out of the way of the busy, swearing crew.
• 7

  nauticaltransportOf a sailor, ship, etc., neat and well-disciplined.

• 8

  beveragesfoodlifestyleStrong; uncompromising.

  • Yet the 2016 Éxilé rosé from Lise et Bertrand Jousset in the Loire Valley, made mostly of gamay, was yeasty let light and lithe, while the 2016 Indigeno from Ancarani in Emilia-Romagna, made of trebbiano, was taut and earthy.

tautverb/tɔːt/

• 1

  To make taut; to tauten, to tighten.

  • The machine is operated by a double friction drum hoist. From the rear drum a steel cable, called the tension cable, leads to a set of fall blocks attached to the mast pole. These blocks afford a means for slackening and tauting the track cable, one end of which is supported by the fall blocks and the other fastened to a "dead man" or other suitable anchorage planted in the bank of the pit opposite the dumping point.
  • The cold wind blew in again through the front door, and with a desperate, frantic energy Evelyn stretched both her arms around the bowl. She must be quick—she must be strong. She tightened her arms until they ached, tauted the thin strips of muscle under her soft flesh, and with a mighty effort raised it and held it.