Cloth being stretched on a wooden tenter with the tenterhooks visible. An undyed cloth suspended on a wooden frame by small hooks.
5 September 2022
To be on tenterhooks is to be strained, waiting impatiently. But what the heck is a tenterhook? The word is obviously a compound of tenter + hook, and hook is easy enough, but it’s the tenter that stumps most people, and the word is often misspelled tenderhook, in what is known to linguists as an eggcorn, a form of folk etymology where an unfamiliar word is re-analyzed and changed to something that seems familiar (e.g., acorn becomes eggcorn or tenter becomes tender).
A tenter is a framework used to stretch cloth for drying. The word appears in English in the late fourteenth century and is of uncertain origin, with no completely satisfactory Anglo-Norman or Anglo-Latin root available. But there are two main possibilities. The first is that it is a variation on the Latin tendere (to stretch)—it is from this root that we get the word tent, a shelter of stretched cloth or canvas—but the problem with connecting it to tenter is that there are no extant intermediate forms, such as *tentorem (stretcher). The other possibility is that is from the Anglo-Norman teint (dye), as dyers would have a need to stretch cloth for drying, but in this case the variety of vowel sounds used in different dialects resist associating tenter with teint.
There is, however, at least one Anglo-Latin use of tentum to mean a tenter. It appears in a will by a Norwich shopkeeper that is dated 23 September 1290:
Georgius de Jeluerton, in testamento suo, legauit Nicholao fratri suo totam seldam suam in Caligaria Norwyci et forcipes et cistam cum atilio ad eandem pertinenti, et legauit similiter eidem Nicholao totam tentam suam et placeam cum atilio eiusdem tente.
George de Yelverton, in his will, left to Nicholas his brother his shop in the bootmakers’ quarter of Norwich and his tongs and chest of tools, and all his tenter and place with the tools belonging to the tenter.
It’s not clear, though, whether this is an example of a Latin word that would eventually become Anglicized, or whether it is a Latinization of an existing English word. It predates any known English use by a century, and while that points to the first being the case, a gap of a century in medieval texts is not an insurmountable one.
In any case, tenter appears in English by about 1390, when it is used in The Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost, which despite its title is a devotional treatise and not a legal document. The passage also illustrates the antisemitic bias that is present in many medieval European texts:
And whon þe lewes hedden þus nayled Crist on þe cros as men doþ cloþ on a teytur, þei reisede him vp fro pe grounde to sette þe rode faste in a morteys þat was maad for þe nones.
(And when the Jews had thus nailed Christ on the cross as men do cloth on a tenter, they raised him up from the ground to set the cross fast in a mortise that had been made for the occasion.)
And we get tenterhook about a century after that. It appears in the 1480 Wardrobe Accounts of King Edward the Fourth in an inventory:
Tapethokes, D.
Tentourhokes, CC.
Clovehamer, j.(Tapestry hooks, 500.
Tenterhooks, 200.
Claw hammer, 1.)
Half a century later we see tenterhooks being used metaphorically to depict suffering, in this case the suffering of Christ on the cross. From Thomas More’s 1532 Confutacion of Frere Barnes Church:
And by this meane ye church is in the treasureys of our lord without spotte or & wryncle. And than if the place she is without spotte or wrinkle be there, what thing shall we praye for whyle we be there? That we may obtain pardon of our sinnes. What god doeth the pardon? It taketh out the spot, and he that forgueth stretcheth oute the wrinkle. And where is our wrinkle stretched out as it wer in the presse or te[n]terhokes of a stro[n]g fuller & upon ye crosse, that is to witte, upon that stretcher or tenter hookes, he shed out his blood for us. And ye o faithful people, know what witness ye beare unto the blood which ye have receiued.
Marke loe howe the churche is made without spot or wrinclele. She is stretched out in the stretcher or tenter hookes of the crosse, as a churche well washed and cleansed.
(And by this means, the church is in the treasuries of our Lord without spot or wrinkle. And then if her place is without spot or wrinkle, what thing shall we pray for while we are there? That we may obtain pardon for our sins. What good does that pardon do? It takes out the spot, and he who forgives us stretches out the wrinkle. And where is our wrinkle stretched out, as if it were in the press or tenterhooks of a strong clothmaker, and upon the cross, that is, to wit, upon the stretcher or tenterhooks he shed out his blook for us. And you, o faithful people, know what witness you bear unto the blood you have received.
Mark, lo, how the church is made without spot or wrinkle. She is stretched out in the stretcher or tenterhooks of the cross, as a church that is well washed and cleansed.)
And the sense of waiting impatiently, being held in suspense—a specific type of suffering—is in place by the mid eighteenth century. From Tobias Smollet’s 1748 novel The Adventures of Roderick Random:
Upon which he stared in my face for some time, and then asked if I was an Englishman.—I answered in the negative.—“You are from Ireland then, Sir, I presume, (said he.)” I made the same reply. “O! perhaps (said he) you was born in one of our settlements abroad.”—I still answered no.—He seemed very much surprized, and said, he was sure I was not a foreigner. I made no reply, but left him on the tenter-hooks of impatient uncertainty.
Being on tenterhooks is, therefore, a fossilized survivor. We know what the phrase means from the context in which it appears, even if we have no clue as to what a tenterhook is.
Discuss this post
Sources:
Anglo Norman Dictionary, 1992, s.v. teint.
“The Charter of the Abbey of the Holy Ghost.” Yorkshire Writers, vol. 1 of 2. Horstmann, Carl., ed. London: S. Sonnenschein, 1895, 361. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Eng. poet. a.1 (Vernon). HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources, 2013, s.v. tenta (tentum), n. Database of Latin Dictionaries, Brepols.
“Item 24, 23 September 1290.” The Records of the City of Norwich, vol. 2 of 2. John Cottingham Tingey, ed. Norwich: Jarrold and Sons, 1910, 14. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Middle English Dictionary, 2019, s.v. tentour, n.(2).
More, Thomas. “The Confutacion of Frere Barnes Church” (1532). The Workes of Sire Thomas More, Knight. London: John Cawod, John Waly, and Richard Tottell, 1557, 797. Early English Books Online (EEBO).
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. tenterhook, n., tenter, n.1.
Smollett, Tobias George. The Adventures of Roderick Random, vol. 2 of 2. London: J. Osborn, 1748, 94. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (EEBO).
“The Wardrobe Accounts of King Edward the Fourth” (1480). Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York. Nicolas Harris Nicolas, ed. London: William Pickering, 1830, 139. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Photo credit: Chiome-gold, 2016. Public domain image.