tender

Forms

tender (first-person singular present tiendo, first-person singular preterite tendí, past participle tendido)^[1] Alfonso X's prose still has the old past participle tendudo beside tendido.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish tender, inherited from Latin tendō (“to stretch, spread out”).^[3][4][5][1] Corominas notes that the verb has been in general use at every period of Spanish.^[3] In the present forms the stressed vowel became the diphthong ⟨ie⟩ (⟨tiendo⟩, ⟨tiende⟩), which Autoridades in 1739 described as an irregularity of the verb.^[6]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese tender, Galician tender, Asturian tender, Catalan tendir (older Old Catalan tendre), French tendre, Occitan tendre, Italian tendere, Sardinian tèndere and Romanian tinde;^[7] Corominas says it is common to all the Romance languages.^{[8][9][10][11][3]}

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from Proto-Italic *tend- and Proto-Indo-European *ten-d(h)- (“to stretch”), a form of the root that is also behind teneō (“to hold”).^[7][12] Wiktionary explains it as an extension of *ten- (“to stretch, draw”) with a ⟨d⟩, and names Ancient Greek τείνω (teínō, “to stretch”) among its cognates.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) already uses it for spreading out cloth: En medio del palacio tendieron un almoçalla “in the middle of the hall they spread out a rug”.^[13][3][4] DEMel lists a primary record in a document of 1142 from the reconquest of the Ebro valley.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The prose of Alfonso X already has most of the modern senses: to unfold, to lay on the ground, to stretch out, to lie down at full length, and to extend over an area of land.^[2] Nebrija gives Latin tendo, extendo and protendo as its equivalents.^[15] Covarrubias in 1611 glosses it “to unfold and spread out” and names tendedero the place where washerwomen hang out their clothes.^[15][16] Autoridades in 1739 defines it as unfolding what is folded or creased, scattering something on the ground and stretching out.^[6]

In 1884 the Academy lists, beside the old senses, hanging out wet clothes to dry, “to tend towards an end” and lying down full length.^[17] Modern uses include laying cables and railway lines, building bridges, setting traps and, in mathematics, a variable approaching a limit.^[5][18] Across much of Latin America tender la cama means “to make the bed”; in Cuba tender a dead person is to lay the body out for the wake, and in Bolivia the verb is popular slang for “to kill”.^[19][3]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has tendieron “they spread out (a rug)”.^[13][3]
• 1142 – DEMel's first primary record, in a document of the Ebro reconquest.^[14]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for unfolding and spreading.^[2]
• 1255 – the first record in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[20]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin tendo, extendo and protendo.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias glosses it “to unfold and spread out”.^[16]
• 1739 – Autoridades notes the diphthong of tiendo, tiende; the derivative tendencia is first recorded the same year.^[6][4]
• 1884 – the Academy lists hanging out washing and “to tend towards”.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To unfold, spread out something folded, creased or piled up: Tendimos la manta sobre la hierba.^[5][1]
2. (transitive) To knock (someone or something) to the ground with a blow.^[5][1]
3. (transitive) To scatter something over the ground.^[5]
4. (transitive) To hang out (wet washing) in the air, the sun or by the fire to dry: Hay que tender la ropa antes de que llueva.^[5][1]
5. (transitive) To stretch, lay or build (something) between two or more points: a rope, a cable, a railway line, a bridge: Los obreros tendieron un cable entre las dos torres.^[5][1]
6. (transitive) To hold out, extend (something, such as the hand) towards someone.^[5][1]
7. (transitive) To set (a trap or ambush) for someone.^[5][1]
8. (transitive, construction) To plaster walls or ceilings.^[5][1]
9. (intransitive) To tend, to move naturally towards something: Los precios tienden a bajar en verano.^[5][1]
10. (intransitive) To have a quality close to another of the same kind, to verge on.^[5]
11. (intransitive, mathematics) Of a variable or function: to approach a value progressively without reaching it.^[5]
12. (reflexive) To lie down at full length; of crops, to be beaten down.^[5][1]
13. (transitive, Latin America) To make (a bed).^[19][1]
14. (transitive, Cuba) To lay out (a dead person) for the wake.^[19][3]

Word family

• tendedero
• tendedor
• tendencia
• tendente
• tenderete
• tendido

Related words

• tensión
• tenso
• tesón
• tienda
• tendón
• tieso
• atender
• entender
• extender
• contender
• Latin tendō

Usage notes

Ténder, with a written accent, the tender of a locomotive, has a separate source: the English word tender, first in the Academy's dictionary in 1884.^[3][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. tender
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 459
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tender
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. tender
6. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 246
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. tendo
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. tendere
9. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom, p. s.v. */ˈtɛnd-e-/
10. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 8, 399
11. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3263
12. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. tender
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. tender
14. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tender
15. ^ a b c Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 421
16. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1324
17. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1016
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tender
19. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. tender
20. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. tender