How to Use tenuous in a Sentence

tenuous

adjective
  • The local theater has had a tenuous existence in recent years.
  • He could demonstrate only a tenuous claim to ownership.
  • He has a tenuous grasp on reality.
  • This gives him a claim (how tenuous is yet to be seen) to the throne.
    Kayleigh Roberts, Marie Claire, 16 July 2017
  • By the end of the quarter, the Bucks held a tenuous eight-point margin.
    Matt Velazquez, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 22 Apr. 2018
  • And sure enough, some of his claims are tenuous or worse.
    The Economist, 11 Jan. 2018
  • The Pac-12 soon followed, with only tenuous plans to play games in the spring.
    Washington Post, 26 Aug. 2020
  • Koepka’s grip on the lead appeared tenuous at times on the back nine.
    Brian Costa, WSJ, 17 June 2018
  • And while DeSantis can still claim to be ahead of the rest of the pack, even that has begun to look tenuous.
    David Lauter, Los Angeles Times, 28 July 2023
  • Six points is a tenuous lead in the NFL, and at any moment the Patriots could have claimed the lead with a big play.
    Sam Farmer, Los Angeles Times, 3 Dec. 2023
  • His heir is a child, so a tenuous Council of Regents has been put in charge.
    Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 12 Feb. 2024
  • The tenuous and drama-filled process that left politicos and voters alike on the edge of their seats was over.
    Christal Hayes, USA TODAY, 13 Aug. 2020
  • Auburn held on to its tenuous lead for eight long minutes.
    Giana Han, al, 27 Nov. 2020
  • That support for Lukashenko is looking all the more tenuous as protests mount.
    Washington Post, 18 Aug. 2020
  • The boundaries between the therapy room and the world are tenuous.
    Sarah Darghouth, STAT, 8 Dec. 2023
  • McCarthy’s hold on the speakership has been tenuous from the start.
    Erin B. Logan, Los Angeles Times, 2 Oct. 2023
  • The highlights have given Luca a grasp on the actual rules of the game that is tenuous at best.
    Jason Horowitz, The New Yorker, 9 Nov. 2022
  • Elflein’s handle on the left guard job seems more tenuous given his problems the last two years.
    Mark Craig, Star Tribune, 6 Aug. 2020
  • The big problem with Keep is that its future seems tenuous.
    David Pierce, The Verge, 25 Aug. 2023
  • Biden and his party have a much more tenuous grip on power.
    NBC news, 26 Apr. 2021
  • The Sun Devils went into the late innings up 14-5, only to give up two in the bottom of the eighth and three in the ninth, making the lead tenuous at best.
    Michelle Gardner, The Arizona Republic, 25 May 2023
  • Most coaches who do that have a tenuous hold on their locker room at best.
    Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press, 5 Nov. 2019
  • From the get-go, there are hints of how tenuous this new beginning is for the Yi family.
    Anne Anlin Cheng, The Atlantic, 19 Feb. 2021
  • Heirs are rarely aware of the tenuous nature of their ownership.
    Lizzie Presser, ProPublica, 15 July 2019
  • This would seem to make such an approach too tenuous to maintain.
    Noah Daponte-Smith, National Review, 28 July 2017
  • The link between unemployment and wages, and wages and prices, has been more tenuous than in decades past.
    New York Times, 18 Jan. 2021
  • Like, so many of these have a very, very tenuous connection.
    Katie Hafner, Scientific American, 18 Nov. 2021
  • But dig down a little more deeply into the numbers and Biden's lead looks far more tenuous.
    Damon Linker, TheWeek, 26 Aug. 2020
  • Even so, the threat of a slowing economy can make its gains seem tenuous.
    Fortune, 20 Aug. 2019
  • That split brought years of strife to this corner of the country, which only twenty years ago gave way to a tenuous peace.
    Time, Time, 26 June 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tenuous.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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