tendre

tendre (comparative more tendre, superlative most tendre)

1. Obsolete form of tender.

tendre (third-person singular simple present tendres, present participle tendring, simple past and past participle tendred)

1. Obsolete form of tender.

tendre (plural tendres)

1. (archaic) Tender feeling or fondness; affection.
   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 15, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     You poor friendless creatures are always having some foolish tendre […]

   • 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:

     So the athletic Magnolia instantly impounded the little lieutenant, and began to rally him, in the sort of slang she delighted in, with plenty of merriment and malice upon his tendre for Miss Chattesworth, and made the gallant young gentleman blush and occasionally smile, and bow a great deal, and take some snuff.

• enter'd, entred, rented, tender

Inherited from Old Catalan tendre, from older tenre (with epenthesis), from Latin tener (“soft, tender”), from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch, draw”). Compare Occitan tèndre, French tendre, Spanish tierno.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ˈtɛn.dɾə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈtɛn.dɾe]

• Audio (Catalonia):

  (file)

tendre (feminine tendra, masculine and feminine plural tendres)

1. soft, tender
2. charming

• entendrir
• tendrement

• tendresa

Inherited from Latin tenēre, with a change in verb class.

tendre

1. (Alghero) alternative form of tenir

• “tendre”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “tendre”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025.
• “tendre” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “tendre” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

• IPA^(key): /tɑ̃dʁ/

• Audio:

  (file)

Inherited from Old French tendre, from Latin tenerum, from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch, draw”).

tendre (plural tendres)

1. tender (soft, delicate)

• tendresse

Inherited from Old French tendre, from Latin tendere.

tendre

1. (transitive) to tighten
2. (transitive) to stretch out
3. (intransitive) to tend [with vers ‘towards’]

   tendre vers l'infini ― to tend to infinity

4. (intransitive) to strive [with vers ‘for’]
5. (reflexive) to become taut

• tente
• tension
• toise

• “tendre”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• redent

Borrowed from Old French tendre.

tendre

1. tender (soft, delicate)
   • 14th c. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. General Prologue: 6-7.

     The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
     Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• Scots: tender
• English: tender

From Old English tynder.

tendre

1. alternative form of tinder

From Old French tendre, from Latin tener, tenerum.

tendre m or f

1. (Jersey) tender

From Latin tenerum, accusative of tener.

tendre m (oblique and nominative feminine singular tendre)

1. tender (soft, delicate)

From Latin tendere.

tendre

1. (transitive) to stretch

This verb conjugates as a third-group verb. Old French conjugation varies significantly by date and by region. The following conjugation should be treated as a guide.

• French: tendre
• Norman: tendre