If you’re on tenterhooks, it means you’re in a state of anxious anticipation or suspense. But what IS a tenterhook? The answer goes back to a 15th-century manufacturing process. Also, you probably have a term for those crumbs that...
To be on tenterhooks means to wait in anxious suspense, and the phrase is rooted in wool processing. After woven wool was washed to remove oil and dirt, it was stretched on wooden frames called tenters so it would not shrink; the small hooks holding...