tenuous

comparative more tenuous · superlative most tenuous

1. Thin in substance or consistency.

   The aether was thought to be of tenuous strands.

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   Far from being amicable, the numbers seemed to turn their backs on each other, and I couldn't find a pair with even the most tenuous connection.

   Synonyms: delicate, gossamer, breakable, delicate, tender, flimsy, fragile, frail

2. Insubstantial.

   His argument was not convincing in the debate, considering how tenuous it was.

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   July 18 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Dark Knight Riseshttps://web.archive.org/web/20130918201706/http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-dark-knight-rises-review-batman,82624/ Picking up eight years after The Dark Knight left off, the film finds Gotham enjoying a tenuous peace based on Harvey Dent’s moral ideals rather than the ugly truth of his demise.

   Synonyms: ethereal, airy, aery, ethereal, diaphanous, immaterial, insubstantial, unreal

3. Precarious, dependent upon unreliable things.

   Paulina's repeated, almost anxious iteration of the lawfulness of her actions serves as a reminder of women's tenuous stance before the law in early modern English society.

   1994, M. Lindsey Kaplan, Katherine Eggert, ““Good queen, my lord, good queen” - Sexual Slander and the Trials of Female Authority in “The Winter's Tale””, in Renaissance Drama, volume 25, →DOI, page 110 of 89–118

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   Is this connected to "pro-gay" Governor Weld's contract with some in the community—gay rights in exchange for keeping sex out of the picture? Those willing to make this 'bargain with the devil' depend for their tenuous status on keeping the rest of us in line, moralizing about the need to behave "beyond reproach," clarifying to the straight public that there are good gays and bad ones.

   1996 September, “Moral Clashes”, in Gay Community News, page 4