1
as in watched
to take charge of especially on behalf of another
tend the store while I run an errand
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in grew
to look after or assist the growth of by labor and care
lately I haven't been doing a good job of tending my garden
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in cultivated
to work by plowing, sowing, and raising crops on
plots that during the war were tended by city dwellers as vegetable gardens
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4
as in managed
to look after and make decisions about
the dying patriarch wondered who would tend the family business after he was gone
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of tended
Sarah Shachat, IndieWire, 21 Jan. 2026
Vanderbilt Coach Mark Byington called a timeout as team athletic trainers tended to James, who returned to the court about nine minutes later.
—Tom Murphy, Arkansas Online, 21 Jan. 2026
People who didn’t climb tended to imagine climbing as a series of Cliffhanger‑style pull‑ups, and indeed, that’s how Dan climbed.
—Literary Hub, 20 Jan. 2026
This turned out to be wrong—or, perhaps more accurately, the gains from doing this tended to be hard to quantify and rarely added up to big changes in either the top or bottom line.
—Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 20 Jan. 2026
Germany has tended to be more reticent about using it partly because its economy is more dependent on exports, Carsten Nickel, deputy director of Research at Teneo, told CNBC.
—Yeo Boon Ping, CNBC, 20 Jan. 2026
In reality, whatever magic had briefly flickered tended to vanish just as quickly.
—Greg Engle, Forbes.com, 20 Jan. 2026
Researchers found that the re-segregation effects tended to be most pronounced in districts in the South, in elementary grades and in schools where segregation rates were lowest before court orders were lifted.
—Silas Allen, Dallas Morning News, 19 Jan. 2026
Enforcement actions tended to be planned and thought through.
—Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 14 Jan. 2026
Verb
Dialogue tended to be sparse in those movies, too, because people mistrusted language then, and Reichardt also likes her speeches laconic.
—Sarah Shachat, IndieWire, 21 Jan. 2026
Vanderbilt Coach Mark Byington called a timeout as team athletic trainers tended to James, who returned to the court about nine minutes later.
—Tom Murphy, Arkansas Online, 21 Jan. 2026
People who didn’t climb tended to imagine climbing as a series of Cliffhanger‑style pull‑ups, and indeed, that’s how Dan climbed.
—Literary Hub, 20 Jan. 2026
This turned out to be wrong—or, perhaps more accurately, the gains from doing this tended to be hard to quantify and rarely added up to big changes in either the top or bottom line.
—Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 20 Jan. 2026
Germany has tended to be more reticent about using it partly because its economy is more dependent on exports, Carsten Nickel, deputy director of Research at Teneo, told CNBC.
—Yeo Boon Ping, CNBC, 20 Jan. 2026
In reality, whatever magic had briefly flickered tended to vanish just as quickly.
—Greg Engle, Forbes.com, 20 Jan. 2026
Researchers found that the re-segregation effects tended to be most pronounced in districts in the South, in elementary grades and in schools where segregation rates were lowest before court orders were lifted.
—Silas Allen, Dallas Morning News, 19 Jan. 2026
Enforcement actions tended to be planned and thought through.
—Isaac Chotiner, New Yorker, 14 Jan. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Tended.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/tended. Accessed 22 Jan. 2026.
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