Tenterhook

[1] Historically, tentergrounds (alternatively, 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 former colonial possessions, for example several streets in Spitalfields, London,[2] and Tenterfield House in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, which in turn gave its name to Tenterfield in New South Wales, Australia.

[3] The word tenter is still used today to refer to production line machinery employed to stretch polyester films and similar fabrics.

By the mid-18th century, the phrase on tenterhooks came to mean being in a state of tension, uneasiness, anxiety, or suspense, i.e., figuratively stretched like the cloth on the tenter.

"[5] 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.

"[7][8] In a letter to his wife the same year, American educator Francis Wayland (waiting for his promised appointment as President of Brown University) wrote "I was never so much on tenter hooks before.