tender
- Gentle, kind, and showing care and love for someone.
- Soft and easy to chew, often used to describe food like meat.
In a sentence
- The nurse spoke in a tender voice to comfort the frightened little boy.
- After cooking slowly for hours, the beef was so tender it fell right off the bone.
Usage note. 'Tender' is also a noun (a legal tender is money) and a verb (to tender a resignation means to formally offer it), so pay attention to context.
Where it comes from
English tender · entered English 14th c.
From Old French 'tendre' and Latin 'tenerum,' meaning soft, delicate, or young. The Latin root is connected to 'tenere,' to hold gently. The word entered Middle English in the 14th century and has carried both the physical sense of softness and the emotional sense of gentleness ever since.