dense

adj 1: permitting little if any light to pass through because of

denseness of matter; "dense smoke"; "heavy fog";

"impenetrable gloom" [syn: {heavy}, {impenetrable}]

2: closely crowded together; "a compact shopping center"; "a

dense population"; "thick crowds" [syn: {compact}, {thick}]

3: hard to pass through because of dense growth; "dense

vegetation"; "thick woods" [syn: {thick}]

4: having high relative density or specific gravity; "dense as

lead"

5: slow to learn or understand; lacking intellectual acuity;

"so dense he never understands anything I say to him";

"never met anyone quite so dim"; "although dull at

classical learning, at mathematics he was uncommonly

quick"- Thackeray; "dumb officials make some really dumb

decisions"; "he was either normally stupid or being

deliberately obtuse"; "worked with the slow students"

[syn: {dim}, {dull}, {dumb}, {obtuse}, {slow}]

tense

Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece of code

often got that way because it was highly {bum}med, but

sometimes it was just based on a great idea. A comment in a

clever routine by Mike Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at

CMU: "This routine is so tense it will bring tears to your

eyes." A tense programmer is one who produces tense code.

[{Jargon File}]