buttock-clenching

English

Adjective

buttock-clenching (comparative more buttock-clenching, superlative most buttock-clenching)

1. (informal) suspenseful, frightening; causing anxiety

   Synonym: (North America) butt-clenching

   • 2012, Michela Wrong, I Didn’t Do It For You, page 19:

     At the end of a buttock-clenching trip, we landed to find Eritrean helicopters crouched on the tarmac of an airport that had just been bombed by Ethiopian jets.

   • 2019, John Aston, Driven:

     I would zoom through the uphill left-hander at Coppice at a buttock-clenching 90mph (145km/h) in fourth, but on the climb up to Charlies the revs would fall away and third was needed just to maintain speed up the hill.