tenderness

plural tendernesses · alternative obsolete tendernesse

1. countableuncountableQuality, state or condition of being tender.

   He picked her up in his arms with great tenderness.

2. countableuncountableA tendency to express warm, compassionate feelings.

   When the lovers were together, their cold indifference gave way to love and tenderness.

   3 more examples

   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

   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

   1980, 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, →ISSN, archived from the original on 18 Sep 2019

3. countableuncountableA concern for the feelings or welfare of others.

   Everybody needs a little tenderness sometimes.

   2 more examples

   When they saw the poor orphans, they were overwhelmed with tenderness for them.

   Quiet people too, for I think that about this time a sort of remorseful tenderness comes over the bullies and the nagsters, so that they go about gently and deprecatingly, hoping by one day's record sweetness to outface the year's blusterings.

   1906, Violet Hunt, The Workaday Woman, page 1

4. countableuncountablemedicineA pain or discomfort when an affected area is touched.

   He noted her extreme tenderness when he touched the bruise on her thigh.

   1 more example

   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