means A state of strain or being stretched tight — physically, as in a pulled rope or cable, or emotionally, as in strained relations or suspense.

from From Latin 'tensio,' meaning a stretching, from the verb 'tendere,' to stretch or strain (the same root that gives us 'tend,' 'extend,' and 'tent' — a thing stretched over poles). It entered English in the 16th or 17th century first as a physical or medical term for stretched tissue, and only later stretched itself into the figurative strain between people.