释义 |
idiombe on tenterhooksto be nervous and excited because you are waiting for something to happen:Carl was on tenterhooks, waiting for his director's decision about the new job.Lisa was there, on tenterhooks, trying to calm down before the doctor talked to her.NoteTenterhooks are used to stretch cloth tightly when it has just been woven. (redirected from be on tenterhooks)on tenterhooks, to beIn a state of painful suspense. The frame on which newly woven cloth was stretched was called a tenter and the hooks used to hold the cloth in place thus were tenterhooks. Tobias Smollett appears to have been the first to use the term metaphorically: “I left him upon the tenterhooks of impatient uncertainty” (The Adventures of Roderick Random, 1748). Clothmaking has changed, and “tenterhook” today survives only in the cliché. |