Tauten is from taut + -en. Taut is from Middle English tought, taught ('tight, distended'), of uncertain origin, perhaps related to tow or tough. Important recorded forms include tought (Middle English). Morphologically, the word preserves a built structure whose named elements carry the historical sense into English. The wording preserves that uncertainty: the older history is best read as a cautious account rather than a fully settled chain. The modern sense continues the older lexical line without requiring a separate origin. In current use it covers to make or become tight or tense. The wider family includes derived forms such as tautened and tautening and related words such as taut and tautness.