v. Also 9 taughten. [f. TAUT a. + -EN5.]
1. trans. To make taut, to or cause to become taut; to tighten.
a. 1814. C. Dibdin, Song, Sailor’s Jrnl. While taught’ning the forestay, I saw her faint.
1836. Diary Wreck Challenger, 1835, 26. Daylight saw all hands, who were not disabled from previous exhaustion, hard at work in tautening the hawsers from the wreck to the shore.
1880. Clark Russell, Sailor’s Sweetheart, III. ii. 57. The warp sang out as we tautened the bight of it.
1886. Sheldon, trans. Flaubert’s Salammbô, xiii. 310. [Catapults] were tautened with levers, pulleys, capstans, or drums.
1903. L. Becke, in Pall Mall G., 28 March, 2/2. In another moment or two your line is tautened out.
2. intr. To become taut, as a rope under tension.
1849. Blackw. Mag., LXVI. 732. The dip of the hawser scarce tautening at each strain.
1879. Beerbohm, Patagonia, v. 66. The shock, as the lasso tautened, threw his horse on its haunches.
1896. Strand Mag., XII. 350/2. The life-line tautened, and I was soon lifted from my feet.
Hence Tautened ppl. a., Tautening vbl. sb.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xxiii. Our ship being very good upon a tautened bowline.
1879. Man. Artill. Exerc., 633. Wedges, oak, small … 20 Tautening lashings.
1906. E. K. Robinson, Relig. Nat., 28. The sudden tautening of the muscles.
