tenderness
Syllables: ten·der·nessUK/ˈtɛn.də.nɪs//ˈtɛn.dɚ.nɪs/
tenderness noun: quality, state or condition of being tender.
Noun
tenderness (countable and uncountable, plural tendernesses)
- Quality, state or condition of being tender.
- He picked her up in his arms with great tenderness.
- A tendency to express warm, compassionate feelings.
- When the lovers were together, their cold indifference gave way to love and tenderness.
- I had known him jealous, suspicious; I had seen about him certain tendernesses, fitfulnesses—a softness which came like a warm air, and a ruth which passed like early dew, dried in the heat of his irritabilities: this was all I had seen.1853, Charlotte Brontë, Villette
- A concern for the feelings or welfare of others.
- When they saw the poor orphans, they were overwhelmed with tenderness for them.
- Everybody needs a little tenderness sometimes.
- A pain or discomfort when an affected area is touched.
- He noted her extreme tenderness when he touched the bruise on her thigh.
- Amies Oelschlager said in a statement that oral contraceptives that contain estrogen may cause side effects such as headaches, nausea, and breast tenderness.2023 July 21, Amanda Musa, “The FDA approved the US’ first over-the-counter birth control pill. What happens next?”, in CNN, archived from the original on 19 Aug 2023
tenderness meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
tenderness in Hindi
- a tendency to express warm, compassionate feelings
- सौम्यता saumyatā, कोमलता komaltā, मृदुलता mŕdultā
- concern for the feelings or welfare of others
- चिंता cintā
tenderness in Tamil
- மிருதுத்தன்மை, தொடு வலிவுணர்வு, தொடுவலி, நொய்வு, வலியுணர்வு
tenderness in Marathi
- tenderness, protective love or fondness felt toward a child or someone younger or dependent
- वात्सल्य vātsalya
tenderness in Urdu
- tenderness, delicateness, delicacy
- نزاکت nazākat
- tenderness
- نرمی narmī
- tenderness, delicacy
- نسائیت nisāiyat
More languagesFewer languages
- tenderness in Bengali
- কোমলতা
- tenderness in Malayalam
- അനുക്രോശം anukrōśaṁ
- tenderness in Kannada
- ಕೋವಳ, ಕೃಪಾ, ಕೃಪೆ, ಅನುಕಂಪ
- tenderness in Punjabi
- ਕੋਮਲਤਾ
- tenderness in Gujarati
- કોમલતા, કોમળતા
- tenderness in Odia
- କୋମଲତା, କୋମଳତା
- tenderness in Arabic
- حنان ḥanān
Examples of tenderness in a sentence
- Love me, try to be understanding / Tenderness is all that I'm asking / Don't feel like I'm making conditions / I want to overcome my inhibitions1980, Diana Ross, “Tenderness”, in Diana (album):
- YSL, as he is often called, is equally capable of casual, aristocratic cruelty and earthy, spontaneous tenderness, and when you study his face it can be hard to distinguish boredom from rapture.2015 May 7, A. O. Scott, “Review: ‘Saint Laurent,’ Beautiful People, High Fashion and Career at Its Pinnacle”, in The New York Times...
Forms of tenderness
| plural | tendernesses |
|---|---|
| alternative form (obsolete) | tendernesse |
Origin of tenderness
From tender + -ness.
Words formed from tenderness
Questions about tenderness
- What does tenderness mean?
- Tenderness means quality, state or condition of being tender.
- What is tenderness in Hindi?
- Tenderness in Hindi is सौम्यता (saumyatā), कोमलता (komaltā), मृदुलता (mŕdultā). See Tenderness meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use tenderness in a sentence?
- Love me, try to be understanding / Tenderness is all that I'm asking / Don't feel like I'm making conditions / I want to overcome my inhibitions
- What part of speech is tenderness?
- Tenderness is a noun.
- How do you pronounce tenderness?
- Tenderness is pronounced /ˈtɛn.dɚ.nɪs/ (US).
- What is the plural of tenderness?
- The plural of tenderness is tendernesses.
Words near tenderness in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tenderness (page history and authors); tenderness (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); वात्सल्य (Marathi) (page history and authors); نرمی (Urdu) (page history and authors); tenderness (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); അനുക്രോശം (Malayalam) (page history and authors); tenderness (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); tenderness (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenderness (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenderness (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-tenderness.ogg.
Cite this entry: “tenderness.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tenderness. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.