Related Clues:

• Sans slack
• In need of a backrub
• Grammarian's subject
• Stretched just short of the breaking point
• Nerve-straining
• Past or present
• Stretched tightly
• Emotionally strained
• Sans any slack
• Full of angst
• The past, for example
• Tensed
• Strung tightly
• Not calm
• Future, for one