Library / English Dictionary

TEND

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Manage or run

Example:

tend a store

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "tend" is one way to...):

mind; take care (be in charge of or deal with)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "tend"):

stoke (stir up or tend; of a fire)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Have care of or look after

Example:

She tends to the children

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "tend" is one way to...):

attend; look; see; take care (take charge of or deal with)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "tend"):

garden (work in the garden)

shepherd (tend as a shepherd, as of sheep or goats)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s somebody PP
Somebody ----s something PP

Derivation:

tender (someone who waits on or tends to or attends to the needs of another)

tending (the work of providing treatment for or attending to someone or something)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Have a tendency or disposition to do or be something; be inclined

Example:

He inclined to corpulence

Synonyms:

be given; incline; lean; run; tend

Classified under:

Verbs of being, having, spatial relations

Hypernyms (to "tend" is one way to...):

be (have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun))

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "tend"):

take kindly to (be willing or inclined to accept)

suffer (be given to)

gravitate (move toward)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s to INFINITIVE

Derivation:

tendency (an attitude of mind especially one that favors one alternative over others)

tendency (an inclination to do something)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Symptoms associated with mutations in this gene, however, tend to be less severe than mutations in the gene for alpha-1 type I collagen since alpha-2 is less abundant.

(Collagen I (Alpha 2), NCI Thesaurus/LocusLink)

The further you go from home, the happier you tend to be.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

Decrease in the amount of soluble alpha-synuclein tends to increase free cytoplasmic dopamine and the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS).

(Parkinson's Disease Pathway KEGG, NCI Thesaurus/KEGG)

If he had but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was tending!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The tumor also tends to spread throughout the neuroaxis and is often rapidly progressive.

(Adult Spinal Cord Glioblastoma, NCI Thesaurus)

It were easy to see that there is no woman to tend to thee.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She had found in her every thing that could tend to make a farther connection between the families undesirable.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Research shows that patients who are more involved with their care tend to get better results.

(Patient Safety, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality)

They do tend to run in families.

(Autoimmune Diseases, NIH)

Existing treatments have tended to take hours to set.

(Materials scientists invent new coating for self-cleaning, water-efficient toilets, Wikinews)