TENDER

Definitions

1. 1. Easily impressed, broken, bruised, or injured; not firm or hard; delicate; as, tender plants; tender flesh; tender fruit.
2. 2. Sensible to impression and pain; easily pained. Our bodies are not naturally more tender than our faces. L'Estrange.
3. 3. Physically weak; not hardly or able to endure hardship; immature; effeminate. The tender and delicate woman among you. Deut. xxviii. 56.
4. 4. Susceptible of the softer passions, as love, compassion, kindness; compassionate; pitiful; anxious for another's good; easily excited to pity, forgiveness, or favor; sympathetic. The Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy. James v. 11. I am choleric by my nature, and tender by my temper. Fuller.
5. 5. Exciting kind concern; dear; precious. I love Valentine, Whose life's as tender to me as my soul! Shak.
6. 6. Careful to save inviolate, or not to injure; -- with of. "Tender of property." Burke. The civil authority should be tender of the honor of God and religion. Tillotson.
7. 7. Unwilling to cause pain; gentle; mild. You, that are thus so tender o'er his follies, Will never do him good. Shak.
8. 8. Adapted to excite feeling or sympathy; expressive of the softer passions; pathetic; as, tender expressions; tender expostulations; a tender strain.
9. 9. Apt to give pain; causing grief or pain; delicate; as, a tender subject. "Things that are tender and unpleasing." Bacon.
10. 10. Heeling over too easily when under sail; -- said of a vessel.