tendresse

plural tendresses

1. countableuncountableTenderness, gentle intimacy or affection.

   Tár has furthermore conceived a tendresse for a new cellist.

   2023 January 11, Peter Bradshaw, “Tár review – Cate Blanchett is perfect lead in delirious, sensual drama”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 11 Jan 2023

   3 more examples

   A desperate honesty that throbs through his confession does not absolve him from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its author!

   1955 September 15, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, Paris: The Olympia Press […], →OCLC, page 7

   When Papillon makes his last impossible try for freedom they embrace with the tendresse of lovers, however manly and platonic.

   1974 February 2, Jonathan Cross, “Poor Butterfly”, in Gay Community News, volume 1, number 32, page 4

   Women loved him, it is true, but he could not respond with enduring tendresse.

   1976 June 12, Alden Whitman, “Books of The Times”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC