Tenterhook

Tenterhook (pronounced ten-ter-hook)

(1) One of the hooks or bent nails that hold cloth stretched on a tenter.

(2) As “on tenterhooks”, in a state of uneasy suspense or painful anxiety.

1470–1480: A compound word tenter + hook.  Tenter (wooden framework for stretching cloth) is from the circa 1300 Middle English tenter and is of uncertain origin but thought probably borrowed from Latin via Old French (although the evolution of the ending is wholly obscure).  The source was the Latin tentorium (tent made of stretched skins) from tentus (stretched), a variant past participle of tendere (to stretch), from the primitive Indo-European root ten- (to stretch).  Hook is pre-900, from the Middle English hoke, from the Old English hōc, from the Proto-Germanic hōkaz (which influenced also the West Frisian & Dutch hoek (hook, angle, corner), the Low German Hook, variant of hakô (hook), the West Frisian heak and the Dutch haak (hook)).  It’s probably ultimately from the primitive Indo-European kog-, keg- & keng- (peg, hook, claw).

Tenterhooks.

The plural form tenterhooks (one of the hooks that holds cloth on a tenter) was noted first in the late fifteenth century but the figurative phrase “on tenterhooks” is from 1748 and its more evocative imagery meant it soon supplanted “to be on tenters” which had been in use since the 1530s.  The phrase “on tenterhooks” came to mean “being in a state of tension, uneasiness, anxiety, or suspense” figuratively stretched like the cloth on the tenter.  Improvements in the design of machines means tenterhooks are no longer widely used in cloth manufacturing, the word tenterhook is now used almost exclusively used in the metaphorical sense.

Those on tenterhooks waiting for new Lindsay Lohan content were glad to learn of the two-film deal with Netflix, Falling for Christmas released in November 2022 while Irish Wish is scheduled for debut in 2023.

The phrase “on tenterhooks” is one of the most misspoken in English, often pronounced as “tenderhooks”.  Only “Parthian shot” suffers more, rendered frequently as “parting shot”, a more understandable mistake given the context.