From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtenuousten‧u‧ous /ˈtenjuəs/ adjective 1 CONNECTED WITHa situation or relationship that is tenuous is uncertain, weak, or likely to change For now, the band’s travel plans are tenuous.tenuous link/connection etc The United Peace Alliance had only a tenuous connection with the organized Labour movement. The link between her family and the King’s is rather tenuous.2 literaryTHIN OBJECT OR MATERIAL very thin and easily broken —tenuously adverb
Examples from the Corpus
tenuous• During this period, Ireland's contact with Rome was often difficult and tenuous.• The family link with her treasure, she says, is rather tenuous.• For both religions, the attachment of the soul to the body was quite tenuous and temporary.• Instead, extraordinarily tenuous arguments were used to relate the competition results to Scott's appointment.• These rivals scratched out a tenuous existence through a combination of herding animals and marginal cultivation of the soil.• See how indefinite are our shapes, see how tenuous our hold on this world grows?tenuous link/connection etc• Shift work added to the tenuous links between incomer men and their Shetlander neighbours.Origin tenuous (1500-1600) Latin tenuis “thin, tenuous” 