Word of the day

So weak that it is unlikely to survive examination

adjective

The English word

tenuous

English never changes here, whatever language you are reading in.

When to use it

A word for connections, arguments, claims and positions that are thin, stretched and close to breaking. It belongs to formal and academic register, where it does precise work: it does not say a link is false, it says the link is too weak to bear the weight being put on it. That makes it a favourite of reviewers, examiners and journalists, who use it to dismiss an argument while sounding measured. Applied to a link or an argument it is nearly always an evaluation, and usually of someone else's reasoning; applied to a hold, a grip or a position it is simply descriptive. A fixed two-word phrase meaning at the very most often follows it, and that phrase makes the judgement harsher, not softer.

Examples

The connection between the two events is tenuous at best. She kept a tenuous hold on the leadership through the winter.

Goes with

a tenuous link tenuous at best a tenuous grip on power increasingly tenuous

Check yourself

Complete the sentence with the English word above.

1. The link between the study and the headline it produced is ___ at best.

Show the answer