TENS

[ tenz ]

noun

, Medicine/Medical.

1. a self-operated portable device used to treat chronic pain by sending electrical impulses through electrodes placed over the painful area.

TENS

/ tɛnz /

acronym for

1. transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation: the application of low-voltage electric impulses to the skin to relieve rheumatic pain and provide some pain relief in labour. The pulses are said to stimulate the release of pain-killing endorphins

Word History and Origins

Origin of TENS¹

t(ranscutaneous) e(lectrical) n(erve) s(timulator)

Example Sentences

Mexico City — Each day, an army of trucks delivers tens of thousands of pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables to Mexico City’s Central de Abasto, one of the world’s largest wholesale food markets.

From Los Angeles Times

Organizers say they’ve reduced the amount of food that is thrown out by about a quarter since 2020 — and have provided meals to tens of thousands of hungry people.

From Los Angeles Times

Traditional methods for generating such ultra-short hard X-ray pulses required dramatically reducing the electron bunch charge to tens of picocoulombs, which limited the pulse energy and practical use.

From Science Daily

The absorbed energy was then emitted as a single high-energy gamma-ray photon with energy in the range of tens to hundreds of megaelectronvolts.

From Science Daily

Reported earlier this month in Science Advances, such “leaftronics” could help reduce the tens of millions of tons of electronic waste, or e-waste, humanity produces every year.

From Science Magazine