tender

History and Etymology for tender

Adjective

Middle English tendre, tender, borrowed from Anglo-French tendre, going back to Latin tener "soft, delicate (of persons or parts of the body), immature, yielding easily, sensitive," probably by metathesis from *terenos or *terunos, going back to Indo-European, whence also Greek térēn "soft, tender," Sanskrit taruṇa- "young, tender, fresh," Avestan tauruna- "young," (as noun) "boy"

Note: Macrobius (early 5th century), in his Saturnalia, quotes Favorinus (ca. 80-160 A.D.) as claiming that terenus meant mollis ("soft") in Sabine; this form would support the hypothesis of metathesis in Latin tener. Ernout and Meillet (Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine, 4th edition, Paris, 1979) reject this etymology without comment, citing instead a possible connection with the ten- of tenēre, tendere, tenuis (see tenant entry 1, tender entry 3, thin entry 1).

Verb (1)

Middle English tendren, probably in part derivative of tendur tender entry 3, in part borrowed from its source, Anglo-French tendre

Note: The apparent use of the Anglo-French nominalized infinitive as an inflected verb in Middle English is paralleled by render entry 2. Cf. tend entry 1, a more regular borrowing of the stem of the same verb, in a different sense.

Noun (1)

Middle English tendur "grant of a license," borrowed from Anglo-French tendre "offer, offer in satisfaction of a debt," noun derivative from infinitive of tendre "to stretch, hold out, offer (a suit, plea, money), grant," going back to Latin tendere "to extend outward, stretch, spread out, direct (one's course), aim (at a purpose)," going back to Indo-European *ten- "stretch, extend" + *-d- (or *-dh-), suffixal extension of uncertain origin — more at tenant entry 1

Note: See note at tenant entry 1. The original past participle of tendere is tentus, which would appear to continue an Indo-European verbal adjective *tn̥-tos, whence also Greek tatós, derived directly from the base *ten- rather than from *tend-. The form tentus was largely replaced by tensus, presumably from *tend-tos, a regular derivative of the new formation tend-.

Noun (2)

probably short for tenderloin

Noun (3)

tend entry 2 + -er entry 2

Verb (2)

Middle English tendren "to become tender, care for, be concerned about," derivative of tender, tendre tender entry 1

Noun (4)

probably noun derivative of tender entry 1 or of tender entry 6 in sense "to be solicitous of"