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.
  • Her grip on it felt too tenuous.
    — Jennifer Ouellette, ArsTechnica, 23 Sep. 2025
  • This gives him a claim (how tenuous is yet to be seen) to the throne.
    — Kayleigh Roberts, Marie Claire, 16 July 2017
  • The odds of survival here were tenuous on the best of days.
    — Charles Pellegrino, Rolling Stone, 6 Aug. 2025
  • His hold on a roster spot is, at best, tenuous.
    — Chandler Rome, New York Times, 18 Aug. 2025
  • In fact, most of the advances have been splashy but tenuous.
    — Dexter Filkins, New Yorker, 12 Jan. 2026
  • Glyphosate’s link to cancer has long been tenuous at best.
    — Editorial Board, Washington Post, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Talks have stalled, though a tenuous ceasefire is in place.
    — ABC News, 12 June 2026
  • But this is a wild-card team, and the emotions are more tenuous in this fan base.
    — Chris Branch, New York Times, 1 Oct. 2025
  • That’s how tenuous his rehab process has been.
    — Noah Furtado, Houston Chronicle, 5 Apr. 2026
  • Most coaches who do that have a tenuous hold on their locker room at best.
    — Dave Birkett, Detroit Free Press, 5 Nov. 2019
  • Their hold on a playoff spot seems safe and also a bit tenuous.
    — Kevin Acee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 Sep. 2025
  • This would seem to make such an approach too tenuous to maintain.
    — Noah Daponte-Smith, National Review, 28 July 2017
  • In the same way, his fans had turned the restaurant into a tenuous shrine.
    — Tejal Rao, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2025
  • Koepka’s grip on the lead appeared tenuous at times on the back nine.
    — Brian Costa, WSJ, 17 June 2018
  • That might seem like a tenuous segue, but there’s plenty to connect the two.
    — Charlie Campbell / Dubai, TIME, 29 Nov. 2024
  • But, as too many flirt with the antisemitism of our past, progress is tenuous.
    — Julia Jassey, New York Daily News, 20 Feb. 2024
  • But even this strong bond seems more tenuous in light of this week's tumultuous events.
    — Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 2 Mar. 2022
  • The archive is sort of tenuous.
    — Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, 22 Feb. 2026
  • The system proved to be tenuous.
    — Debra Utacia Krol, AZCentral.com, 27 Feb. 2026
  • That judge even spoke to the tenuous nature of rulings.
    — Zoe Collins Rath, Austin American Statesman, 8 Apr. 2026
  • The conflict has been in a tenuous ceasefire for weeks.
    — Garrett Downs, CNBC, 4 June 2026
  • A lot of the time, though, the connection is tenuous.
    — Sam Kriss, Harpers Magazine, 24 Feb. 2026
  • Not that even such a tenuous link is necessary.
    — Arash Azizi, The Atlantic, 16 Sep. 2025
  • Even so, the threat of a slowing economy can make its gains seem tenuous.
    — Fortune, 20 Aug. 2019
  • The Trojan men’s March hopes are the more tenuous of the two.
    — Ryan Kartje, Los Angeles Times, 16 Feb. 2026
  • There was an idea that descendants had tenuous links to Italy over time.
    — Julia Buckley, CNN Money, 14 Mar. 2026
  • Support for the trash fee was always tenuous.
    — Michael Smolens, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 Jan. 2026

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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