![Tenter Frames, Otterburn Mill, Northumberland](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d2/Tenter_Frames%2C_Otterburn_Mill%2C_Northumberland.jpg)
Tenterhooks or tenter hooks are
hook
A hook is a tool consisting of a length of material, typically metal, that contains a portion that is curved or indented, such that it can be used to grab onto, connect, or otherwise attach itself onto another object. In a number of uses, one e ...
ed nails in a device called a ''tenter''. Tenters were wooden frames which were used as far back as the 14th century in the process of making
wool
Wool is the textile fibre obtained from sheep and other mammals, especially goats, rabbits, and camelids. The term may also refer to inorganic materials, such as mineral wool and glass wool, that have properties similar to animal wool.
As ...
len
cloth
Textile is an umbrella term that includes various fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, filaments, threads, different fabric types, etc. At first, the word "textiles" only referred to woven fabrics. However, weaving is not the ...
.
The phrase "''on tenterhooks''" has become a
metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wit ...
for nervous anticipation.
Cloth-making
After a piece of cloth was woven, it still contained
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
and dirt from the
fleece. A
craft
A craft or trade is a pastime or an occupation that requires particular skills and knowledge of skilled work. In a historical sense, particularly the Middle Ages and earlier, the term is usually applied to people occupied in small scale prod ...
sman called a
fuller (also called a tucker or
wa(u)lker, in
Scots, from the word 'Walker', as used in most of the UK mainland), cleaned the woollen cloth in a
fulling mill
Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to elimin ...
, and then had to dry it carefully, to prevent the woollen fabric from shrinking. To prevent this shrinkage, the fuller would place the wet cloth on a large wooden frame, called a tenter (), and leave it to dry outdoors. The lengths of wet cloth were stretched on the tenter using tenterhooks (hooked nails whose long shank was driven into the wood) all around the perimeter of the frame to which the cloth's edges (
selvedge
A selvage (US English) or selvedge (British English) is a "self-finished" edge of a piece of fabric which keeps it from unraveling and fraying. The term "self-finished" means that the edge does not require additional finishing work, such as hem ...
s) were fixed, so that as it dried the cloth would retain its shape and size.
There were
tenterground
A tenterground, tenter ground or teneter-field was an area used for drying newly manufactured cloth after fulling. The wet cloth was hooked onto frames called "tenters" and stretched taut using "tenter hooks", so that the cloth would dry flat ...
s (or tenter-fields), large open spaces full of tenters, wherever cloth was made, and as a result the word "tenter" is found in place names throughout the United Kingdom and its empire, for example several streets in
Spitalfields
Spitalfields is a district in the East End of London and within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The area is formed around Commercial Street (on the A1202 London Inner Ring Road) and includes the locale around Brick Lane, Christ Church, ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
Tenterfield House
Tenterfield House is a category B listed building in Dunbar Road, Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. It was built in the 18th century as a two-storey private residence. A three-story wing with tower was added circa 1860. The house was used as a ...
in
Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, which in turn gave its name to
Tenterfield
Tenterfield is a regional town in New South Wales, Australia. At the , Tenterfield had a population of 4,066. Tenterfield's proximity to many regional centres and its position on the route between Sydney and Brisbane led to its development as a ...
in New South Wales, Australia.
The word ''tenter'' is still used today to refer to production line machinery employed to stretch
polyester
Polyester is a category of polymers that contain the ester functional group in every repeat unit of their main chain. As a specific material, it most commonly refers to a type called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Polyesters include natural ...
films and similar fabrics. The spelling ''stenter'' is also found.
Metaphor
By the mid-18th century, the phrase ''on tenterhooks'' came to mean being in a state of tension, uneasiness,
anxiety
Anxiety is an emotion which is characterized by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil and includes feelings of dread over anticipated events. Anxiety is different than fear in that the former is defined as the anticipation of a future threat wh ...
, or suspense, i.e., figuratively stretched like the cloth on the tenter.
John Ford's 1633 play ''Broken Heart'' contains the lines: "There is no faith in woman. Passion, O, be contain'd! My very heart-strings Are on the tenters."
In 1690 the periodical ''The General History of Europe'' used the term in the modern sense: "The mischief is, they will not meet again these two years, so that all business must hang upon the tenterhooks till then."
In 1826, English periodical ''
Monthly magazine or British register of literature, sciences, and the belles-lettres'' contained the line "I hope (though the wish is a cruel one) that my fair readers, if any such readers have deigned to follow me thus far, are on tenterhooks to know to whom the prize was adjudged." In a letter to his wife the same year, American educator
Francis Wayland
Francis Wayland (March 11, 1796 – September 30, 1865), was an American Baptist minister, educator and economist. He was president of Brown University and pastor of the First Baptist Church in America in Providence, Rhode Island. In Washingto ...
(waiting for his promised appointment as President of
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
) wrote "I was never so much on tenter hooks before."
[Roelker, William G]
"Francis Wayland A neglected pioneer of higher education"
''Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society'', 53 (1):27–78. 1944. retrieved 14 February 2014
References
{{fabric
Textile arts
Metalworking