Crossword-Solution: TIGHTENED 9 letters, 11 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 14

After 8 years of growth, the economy experienced a mild recession in 1991 because monetary policy was tightened to combat inflation and because of the weak international economy.

Simultaneously my free hand shot out for the black throat, just within reach, and the ebony finger tightened on the trigger.

While the Northern states strove to stabilize society in order to build a flourishing commerce, the Southern states tightened their control over their slaves fearing that insurrections from South America or ideas about freedom and equality from the American Revolution itself might inspire a serious slave rebellion.

Then the quick noose settled and tightened about the tawny throat, and, as he had done it a hundred times in the past, Tarzan made fast the end to a strong branch and, while the beast fought and clawed for freedom, dropped to the ground behind him, and leaping upon the great back, plunged his long thin blade a dozen times into the fierce heart.

His misses at so short a distance were practically non-existent, nor would he have missed this time but for an accident occurring at the very instant that his finger tightened upon the trigger—an accident to which Meriem owed her life—the providential presence of a water-logged tree trunk, one end of which was embedded in the mud of the river bottom and the other end of which floated just beneath the surface where the prow of Malbihn’s canoe ran upon it as he fired.