1.   The old lady lay quiet but tense as the needle delivered its drug.

2.   If they are lax they are realised as short vowels, if tense as diphthongs.

3.   But many shelters were overcrowded and becoming tense as nerves frayed.

4.   Despite clouds and rain in Pasadena, the Rose Bowl, as memorable and tense as any in recent years, inspired an unlikely connection.

5.   His rehearsals are by all accounts as tense as his performances.

6.   I used to fall into bed at night, tense as a stick, feeling as if the ticking of the clock was my worst enemy.

7.   In a Congress as angry and tense as this one, it might even work.

8.   Rydstrom and his two assistants looked almost as tense as the actress, who was cowering in bed, her eyes fixed on something on the ornately carved ceiling.

9.   Serpa sat visibly tense as one presidential contender after another derided the government he has spent three years defending.

10.   That event turned tense as the police used pepper spray on crowds that included self-described anarchists wielding garbage-pail lids as shields.