How to spell tender

hear itten·der/'tɛndər/adjectiveRules and real life

What it means: Gentle, soft, or delicate.

In a sentence: The baby bird had a tender, sweet song.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as tendar or tenderr.

Same family: tend, tenderly, attendance, attendant, caretaker. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Tender comes from the Latin root 'tendere,' meaning 'to stretch' or 'to attend,' which also gave English the words 'tend,' 'attend,' and 'attention.' Over time, 'tender' came to mean both a person who attends to others and, in other uses, something soft or gentle.

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Words like this

farmer · leader · separate · sadder · folder · membership · dessert · terrible

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