buttock-clenching

comparative more buttock-clenching · superlative most buttock-clenching

1. informalSuspenseful, frightening; causing anxiety.

   At the end of a buttock-clenching trip, we landed to find Eritrean helicopters crouched on the tarmac of an airport that had just been bombed by Ethiopian jets.

   2012, Michela Wrong, I Didn’t Do It For You, page 19

   1 more example

   I would zoom through the uphill left-hander at Coppice at a buttock-clenching 90mph (145km/h) in fourth, but on the climb up to Charlies the revs would fall away and third was needed just to maintain speed up the hill.

   2019, John Aston, Driven

   Synonyms: butt-clenching, affreux, alarming, spine-tingling, appalling, awful, eldritch, buggish