TENT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does tent mean? 

• TENT (noun)
  The noun TENT has 2 senses:

1. a portable shelter (usually of canvas stretched over supporting poles and fastened to the ground with ropes and pegs)

2. a web that resembles a tent or carpet

  Familiarity information: TENT used as a noun is rare.

• TENT (verb)
  The verb TENT has 1 sense:

1. live in or as if in a tent

  Familiarity information: TENT used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TENT (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A portable shelter (usually of canvas stretched over supporting poles and fastened to the ground with ropes and pegs)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

collapsible shelter; tent

Context example:

he pitched his tent near the creek

Hypernyms ("tent" is a kind of...):

shelter (a structure that provides privacy and protection from danger)

Meronyms (parts of "tent"):

guy; guy cable; guy rope; guy wire (a cable, wire, or rope that is used to brace something (especially a tent))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tent"):

marquee; pavilion (large and often sumptuous tent)

umbrella tent (a small tent with a single supporting pole and radiating metal ribs)

two-man tent (a tent designed for occupancy by two persons)

sealskin tent; tupek; tupik (tent that is an Eskimo summer dwelling)

teepee; tepee; tipi (a Native American tent; usually of conical shape)

pyramidal tent (a large tent shaped like a pyramid; can hold half a dozen people)

pup tent; shelter tent (a wedge-shaped tent; usually without a floor or windows)

praetorium; pretorium (the tent of an ancient Roman general)

pop tent (a small tent that is easy to carry and quick to set up)

backpacking tent; pack tent (a tent that can be carried in a backpack)

mountain tent (a lightweight tent with a floor; flaps close with a zipper)

lean-to tent (tent that is attached to the side of a building)

fly tent (a tent with a fly front)

cottage tent (a tent providing shelter for a family)

canvas; canvas tent; canvass (a tent made of canvas fabric)

cabana (a small tent used as a dressing room beside the sea or a swimming pool)

bell tent (a bell-shaped tent)

Derivation:

tent (live in or as if in a tent)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A web that resembles a tent or carpet

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural objects (not man-made)

Hypernyms ("tent" is a kind of...):

web (an intricate network suggesting something that was formed by weaving or interweaving)

• TENT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they tent    ... he / she / it tents   
Past simple: tented   
Past participle: tented   
-ing form: tenting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Live in or as if in a tent

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Synonyms:

bivouac; camp; camp out; encamp; tent

Context example:

The houseguests had to camp in the living room

Hypernyms (to "tent" is one way to...):

dwell; inhabit; live; populate (be an inhabitant of or reside in)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

Derivation:

tent (a portable shelter (usually of canvas stretched over supporting poles and fastened to the ground with ropes and pegs))

tenting (the act of encamping and living in tents in a camp)

 Context examples 

Over all this vast meadow there lay a great city of tents—thousands upon thousands of them, laid out in streets and in squares like a well-ordered town.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It may be given through a nose tube, a mask, or a tent.

(Oxygen Therapy, NCI Dictionary)

Maud still watched from the tent.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

“However in the world could I manage without a tent?”

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

There goes the man with the tent!

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

All round, the thousands of carriages and horses were dotted over the moor, and the slopes were gay with tents and booths.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An establishment was also made of six hundred persons to be my domestics, who had board-wages allowed for their maintenance, and tents built for them very conveniently on each side of my door.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Zambo occupied our little tent at the base of the pinnacle, and there he remained, our one link with the world below.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Back and forth across the desolation drifted their howls, weaving the very air into a fabric of menace that was so tangible that he found himself, arms in the air, pressing it back from him as it might be the walls of a wind-blown tent.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

I dropped into the hollow, lifted the side of the tent, and there was Ben Gunn's boat—home-made if ever anything was home-made; a rude, lop-sided framework of tough wood, and stretched upon that a covering of goat-skin, with the hair inside.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)