Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective
tenderness
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Remove ads
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈtɛn.dɚ.nɪs/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈtɛn.də.nɪs/
Audio (US): (file) - Hyphenation: ten‧der‧ness
Noun
tenderness (countable and uncountable, plural tendernesses)
- A tendency to express warm, compassionate feelings.
- When the lovers were together, their cold indifference gave way to love and tenderness.
- 1853, Charlotte Brontë, Villette:
- I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain tendernesses, fitfulnesses—a softness which came like a warm air, and a ruth which passed like early dew, dried in the heat of his irritabilities: this was all I had seen.
- 1980, Diana Ross, “Tenderness”, in Diana (album):
- Love me, try to be understanding / Tenderness is all that I'm asking / Don't feel like I'm making conditions / I want to overcome my inhibitions
- A concern for the feelings or welfare of others.
- When they saw the poor orphans, they were overwhelmed with tenderness for them.
- Everybody needs a little tenderness sometimes.
- 1906, Violet Hunt, The Workaday Woman, page 1:
- Quiet people too, for I think that about this time a sort of remorseful tenderness comes over the bullies and the nagsters, so that they go about gently and deprecatingly, hoping by one day's record sweetness to outface the year's blusterings.
- (medicine, pathology) A pain or discomfort when an affected area is touched.
- He noted her extreme tenderness when he touched the bruise on her thigh.
- 2023 July 21, Amanda Musa, “The FDA approved the US’ first over-the-counter birth control pill. What happens next?”, in CNN:
- Amies Oelschlager said in a statement that oral contraceptives that contain estrogen may cause side effects such as headaches, nausea, and breast tenderness.
Derived terms
Translations
a tendency to express warm, compassionate feelings
|
concern for the feelings or welfare of others
pain or discomfort when an affected area is touched
|
Remove ads
Wikiwand - on
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Remove ads