Tender

tender
1. Easily impressed, broken, bruised, or injured; not firm or hard; delicate; as, tender plants; tender flesh; tender fruit.
2. Sensible to impression and pain; easily pained. Our bodies are not naturally more tender than our faces. (L’Estrange)
3. Physically weak; not hardly or able to endure hardship; immature; effeminate. The tender and delicate woman among you. (Deut. Xxviii. 56)
4. Susceptible of the softer passions, as love, compassion, kindness; compassionate; pitiful; anxious for another’s good; easily excited to pity, forgiveness, or favor; sympathetic. The lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. (James v. 11) I am choleric by my nature, and tender by my temper. (Fuller)
5. Exciting kind concern; dear; precious. I love valentine, Whose life’s as tender to me as my soul! (Shak)
6. Careful to save inviolate, or not to injure; with of. Tender of property. The civil authority should be tender of the honor of god and religion. (Tillotson)
7. Unwilling to cause pain; gentle; mild. You, that are thus so tender o’er his follies, Will never do him good. (Shak)
8. Adapted to excite feeling or sympathy; expressive of the softer passions; pathetic; as, tender expressions; tender expostulations; a tender strain.
9. Apt to give pain; causing grief or pain; delicate; as, a tender subject. Things that are tender and unpleasing.
10. Heeling over to
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o easily when under sail; said of a vessel.
Tender is sometimes used in the formation of self-explaining compounds; as, tender-footed, tender-looking, tender-minded, tender-mouthed, and the like.
Synonym: delicate, effeminate, soft, sensitive, compassionate, kind, humane, merciful, pitiful.
Origin: F. Tendre, L. Tener; probably akin to tenuis thin. See Thin.
1. One who tends; one who takes care of any person or thing; a nurse.
2. A vessel employed to attend other vessels, to supply them with provisions and other stores, to convey intelligence, or the like.
3. A car attached to a locomotive, for carrying a supply of fuel and water.
Origin: From Tend to attend. Cf. Attender.