tender

Forms

tender (first-person singular present tendo, first-person singular preterite tendi, past participle tendido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tendō (“to stretch, extend; to make for, aim at”), a verb that Portuguese has had since the 13th century.^[2][3][4][1] The same Latin verb is Galician tender, Spanish tender, French tendre, Italian tendere and Romanian tinde.^[5][1] Corominas notes that the Spanish verb is found in every period and that the word is common to all the Romance languages.^[6]

The Latin verb goes back to *tendō, from *ten- (“to stretch, draw”) extended with a d, and is related to τείνω (teínō) and तनोति (tanóti).^[1][7] De Vaan lists the many Latin compounds of the verb, among them attendō, contendō, extendō and ostendō.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria use the verb for stretching out a limb: one miracle has foi ssa mão tender “went to stretch out his hand”, another tendeu o braço “stretched out his arm”.^[9] The Crónica Troiana uses it for drawing a bow (tendeu seu arquo) and for unfurling.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The physical senses came first: stretching out a hand, drawing a bow, spreading something out.^[9] Bluteau's dictionary has both the figurative sense “to direct one's actions to an end”, as in tender a grandes cousas, and the baker's tender o pão, dividing the dough and shaping it into loaves.^[10] Morais adds the wind filling the sails, the unfurling of sails and flags, and the sense “to have a direction or leaning”, as bodies tend to their centre.^[11] Vieira records rolling out dough on a board until it is thin.^[12]

The figurative senses “to tend, have a leaning, come close to” now lead in the dictionaries, and the Academia's dictionary adds the mathematical sense of tending to a limit.^[2][13] The baker's sense lives on in northern Portugal, where the word is also recorded as tinder.^[14]

Timeline

• 13th century – foi ssa mão tender and tendeu o braço in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[9]
• 1433 – first record in the CTA corpus, in the Vita Christi (15th-century witness).^[15]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau gives tender a grandes cousas and tender o pão.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais records the senses “to fill the sails” and “to have a leaning or direction”.^[11]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives the verb from Latin and adds “to roll out dough”.^[12]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos lists a separate noun tender, the coal and water car of a train, as an English word.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stretch out, spread out;^[1] (reflexive) to extend, stretch over a distance.^[2][17]
2. To roll out or shape dough (for bread or pastries) before it is baked.^[2][18]
3. To fill (a sail) with wind; to unfurl (a sail or a flag).^[2][19]
4. To head for, make one's way towards: O plano tendia ao desastre.^[2][20]
5. To tend, have a leaning or inclination (towards something), usually with a or para: Ela sempre tendeu para a pintura.^[2][19][1]
6. To come close to, verge on: um azul que tende para o cinzento.^[2][20]
7. To have as one's aim; to be meant for.^[2][21]
8. To aspire to, strive for.^[2][20]
9. (intransitive) To lean or turn in a direction.^[2]
10. (mathematics) To approach a limit.^[13]

Word family

• tendência
• tendente

Related words

• tenda
• tensão
• tenso
• teso
• estender
• entender
• atender
• pretender
• Latin tendō
• Galician tender

Usage notes

In colloquial Brazilian Portuguese tender is also a clipping of entender “to understand”.^[1] Vieira already refers tender em alguma cousa to entender.^[12]

The noun tender, the car behind a locomotive that carries its coal and water, is a different word, from English.^[16][22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. tender
3. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. tender
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tender
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 459
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. tender
10. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. tender
11. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 2, 451
12. ^ a b c Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 5, 699
13. ^ a b Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. tender
14. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. tender
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. tender
16. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. tender
17. ^ Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. tender
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. tender
19. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. tender
20. ^ a b c Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. tender
21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 8896
22. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 490