Tender (Hastings' Dictionary)

The adj. ' tender ' is somewhat more restricted in use now than formerly. Probably under the iulluence of the Biblical ' tender mercies,' it has become mostly figurative, and is chiefly used in a good sense. We might still speak of diamonds as 'tender' with Maundeville (Iravels, 106, ' Other diamonds men find in Arabia that be not so good, and they be more brown and more tender) ; but we should not speak of wax so, as Wyclif does {Select Works, iii. 103, ' The tendre we.

x maketh no preynte in the seel, bot the seel maketh a prevnt in tenderc wex '). The meaning in AV is usually ' soft,' ' delicate,' used of children (Gn 33'3) ; gently nurtured youths (1 Cli '22' 29', I'r 4'), men (Dt 28", Is 47'), and women (Dt 28") ; also of herbs (Dt 32-, Job 38»), plants (Is 53'), grass (2 S 23^ Pr 2.7^, Dn 4'»- »), grapes (Ca 2"^ " 7'^), branches (Mt 24*', Mk IS-^) in spring. In 8 Ch 13' Keboboam is called ' tender hearted ' (=; LXX Set\i! rj Kapdig., Vlllg.

corde pavi(lo), a phrase which has now quite a (iillerent meaning. The modern meaning is found in Eph 4*^ ((Cair\ayx- to%). In Gn 29" we read tliat ' Leah was tender eyed ' (WZI nx^ 'i"jy ; LXX ol Si dipeaX/iol Atias aaSfveU, Vulg. scd Lia lljipis erat orculis), wliere the Heb. as well as the Eng. probably means that Leah's eyes were weak (not 'bleared' as Vulg.), and 80, as Dillmann and others suggest, 'without brightness or brillinnry of lustre.' See Leah. The Heb.

word D";-"; raUftmhn (in this sense alwaj^a plu.) is translated occasionally in AV 'tender mercies' (Ts ^o" 40" 51' 69" 77* 79» 103' 119"- '" 145', Pr 12"'). The sing, 'tender mercy' occurs in NT, Lk 1™ (airXinca), Ja 5" 'The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy' {olxTtp/iuv, RV ' merciful ').

The verb 'to tender' in the sense of 'care for' occurs in 2 Mac 4- ' Thus was he bold to call him a traitor, that had deserved well of the city, and tendered his own nation ' {rin K-qSeiibva tCiv inoeBowi'). Cf. Cr.anmer, Works, i. 130, ' But to be plain what I think of the Bishop of Winchester, I cannot persuade with my self tliat he so much tendereth the king's cause as he doth his own ' ; Latimer, Sermnns, 96, ' How God tendreth and rcgardes the cause of the widdow and the poore.'

The verb in this sense is a direct derivative from the adj. (which is from Lat. tener, through Fr. tendre), not the s.ame as the verb to tender (fr. Lat. tcndcre, through Fr. tendre), meaning to protfer, show. J. HASTINGS.