: an unconditional offer of money or service in satisfaction of a debt or obligation made to save a penalty or forfeiture for nonpayment or nonperformance
2
: an offer or proposal made for acceptance: such as
Adjective He gave her a tender look. She was tender and loving with her new child. Cook the pasta until it is just tender. Her wrist was swollen and tender.
Word History
Etymology
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 tendurtender 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-.