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tend
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
tend
verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
also
▪ It also tends to be grown locally so that less fuel is wasted on transporting it.
▪ They also tend to be physically removed from the world around them.
▪ The very presence of the media also tends to alter the relationships between the political and social institutions which they link up.
▪ Community colleges also tend to have stronger ties to businesses than do either high schools or four-year institutions.
▪ Rents also tend to be higher, particularly for smaller premises, and this differential has, if anything, increased.
▪ Babies born to women who did not abstain from drinking during pregnancy also tend to exhibit abnormal sleep patterns after birth.
▪ Much buying takes place under contract and this also tends to limit the search and investigation of alternative suppliers.
▪ The fact that people who stop smoking also tend to gain weight muddles the conclusions on weight and longevity even more.
■ NOUN
group
▪ At staff functions at Burleigh, little groups tended to form.
▪ These groups tend to locate in the older urban cores as a result of factors examined earlier.
▪ Focus on certain muscle groups for sports that tend to overuse specific muscles.
▪ The losing group tends to splinter: conflicts come to the surface; blame is allocated.
▪ Such groups tend to treasure their secrets.
▪ Reviews in both groups tend to be very full and by authorities on their subjects.
▪ But he is also respected by groups that tend to gravitate toward the Democratic Party.
people
▪ The frequency of published reports has actually declined since 1960 because people tend to dismiss loud explosions as merely military sonic booms.
▪ Male speaker Most burglars prefer to go to an empty house and elderly people tend to be at home all day.
▪ Do hearing people tend to occupy more influential positions in technology than do deaf people?
▪ Most people tend to do better work-or at least to enjoy it more-when they work for some one who likes them.
▪ They are not taking things lying down as many other Third World people tend to do.
▪ About his inability to build a chair, Jasper observed that people tend to get tired of chairs.
woman
▪ Their cultural background is that of a small rural community where women tend to go out with family members or neighbours.
▪ I think women tend to be more accepting and open.
▪ In women, warts tend to go unnoticed unless they are quite large.
▪ Since women voters tend to decide late in the campaign, one wrong remark can cost a candidate dearly.
▪ With the arrival of a child a woman tends to see herself as parent first and partner second.
▪ In spite of the protection offered by equal opportunity laws, women tend to be overlooked and receive fewer promotions.
▪ Men and women both tend to put on weight in middle-age, when exercise becomes less frequent.
▪ In hunting and gathering societies, men hunted and women gathered while tending hearth and children.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ It tends to be the brighter kids who get all the teacher's attention.
▪ Jose was outside tending the garden when the fire broke out.
▪ Mom was usually busy tending to my younger sisters.
▪ What tends to happen is that the poorest families end up in the worst housing.
▪ Young children tend to get sick more often than adults.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Departments with an eye to the ratings tend to appoint established researchers with proven records, rather than younger, unpublished candidates.
▪ First, he tends to have relatively better visual-spatial abilities.
▪ In other words, your transcription tends to become more phonemic without being systematically so.
▪ Jose Aburto Cortez, 57, was outside tending the garden when the fire broke out.
▪ Smaller, start-up companies last year tended to be in the business of technology.
▪ Such people tend to perform marginal tasks and to enter and leave the workforce at random intervals.
▪ The process of distillation tends to alter the aroma to a degree.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Tend

Tend \Tend\, v. i.

  1. To wait, as attendants or servants; to serve; to attend; -- with on or upon.

    Was he not companion with the riotous knights That tend upon my father?
    --Shak.

  2. [F. attendre.] To await; to expect. [Obs.]
    --Shak.

Tend

Tend \Tend\, v. t. [See Tender to offer.] (O. Eng. Law) To make a tender of; to offer or tender. [Obs.]

Tend

Tend \Tend\, v. i. [F. tendre, L. tendere, tensum and tentum, to stretch, extend, direct one's course, tend; akin to Gr. ? to stretch, Skr. tan. See Thin, and cf. Tend to attend, Contend, Intense, Ostensible, Portent, Tempt, Tender to offer, Tense, a.]

  1. To move in a certain direction; -- usually with to or towards.

    Two gentlemen tending towards that sight.
    --Sir H. Wotton.

    Thus will this latter, as the former world, Still tend from bad to worse.
    --Milton.

    The clouds above me to the white Alps tend.
    --Byron.

  2. To be directed, as to any end, object, or purpose; to aim; to have or give a leaning; to exert activity or influence; to serve as a means; to contribute; as, our petitions, if granted, might tend to our destruction.

    The thoughts of the diligent tend only to plenteousness; but of every one that is hasty only to want.
    --Prov. xxi. 5.

    The laws of our religion tend to the universal happiness of mankind.
    --Tillotson.

Tend

Tend \Tend\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Tended; p. pr. & vb. n. Tending.] [Aphetic form of attend. See Attend, Tend to move, and cf. Tender one that tends or attends.]

  1. To accompany as an assistant or protector; to care for the wants of; to look after; to watch; to guard; as, shepherds tend their flocks.
    --Shak.

    And flaming ministers to watch and tend Their earthly charge.
    --Milton.

    There 's not a sparrow or a wren, There 's not a blade of autumn grain, Which the four seasons do not tend And tides of life and increase lend.
    --Emerson.

  2. To be attentive to; to note carefully; to attend to.

    Being to descend A ladder much in height, I did not tend My way well down.
    --Chapman.

    To tend a vessel (Naut.), to manage an anchored vessel when the tide turns, so that in swinging she shall not entangle the cable.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
tend

"to incline, to move in a certain direction," early 14c., from Old French tendre "stretch out, hold forth, hand over, offer" (11c.), from Latin tendere "to stretch, extend, make tense; aim, direct; direct oneself, hold a course" (see tenet).

tend

"attend to," c.1200, a shortening of Middle English atenden (see attend).

Wiktionary
tend

Etymology 1 alt. (context transitive now chiefly dialectal English) To kindle; ignite; set on fire; light; inflame; burn. vb. (context transitive now chiefly dialectal English) To kindle; ignite; set on fire; light; inflame; burn. Etymology 2

vb. 1 (context legal Old English law English) To make a tender of; to offer or tender. 2 (context followed by a to infinitive English) To be likely, or probable to do something, or to have a certain characteristic. (from the mid-14th c.) Etymology 3

vb. 1 (context with to English) To look after (e.g. an ill person.) (from the early 14th c.) 2 To accompany as an assistant or protector; to care for the wants of; to look after; to watch; to guard. 3 To wait (upon), as attendants or servants; to serve; to attend. 4 (context obsolete English) To await; to expect. 5 (context obsolete English) To be attentive to; to note carefully; to attend to. 6 (context transitive nautical English) To manage (an anchored vessel) when the tide turns, to prevent it from entangling the cable when swinging.

Related phrases:
WordNet
tend

  1. v. have a tendency or disposition to do or be something; be inclined; "She tends to be nervous before her lectures"; "These dresses run small"; "He inclined to corpulence" [syn: be given, lean, incline, run]

  2. have care of or look after; "She tends to the children"

  3. manage or run; "tend a store"

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Tend

Tend may refer to:

  • Attend (attention)
  • Bartend, to serve beverages behind a bar
  • Tend and befriend, a behavioural pattern exhibited by human beings and some animal species when under threat
  • Looking after trees, a part of silviculture.

Usage examples of "tend".

Whilst the mechanist abridges, and the political economist combines labour, let them beware that their speculations, for want of correspondence with those first principles which belong to the imagination, do not tend, as they have in modern England, to exasperate at once the extremes of luxury and want.

It took the position that even if freedom of the press was protected against abridgment by the State, a publication tending to obstruct the administration of justice was punishable, irrespective of its truth.

The absolutist nature of the American Creed, with its ideological faith in Democracy and Freedom, tends to produce etherized, contentless versions of both these concepts.

From her own experience, she has become aware that there are many women like herself who leave the Family and fall into similarly controlling and abusive situations, which tend to perpetuate the experiences that they had while in the cult.

This illustration is not intended to apply to the older bridges with widely distended masses, which render each pier sufficient to abut the arches springing from it, but tend, in providing for a way over the river, to choke up the way by the river itself, or to compel the river either to throw down the structure or else to destroy its own banks.

However, I tend to think that passive participles do behave like normal adjectives in this regard.

The reply of those who opposed the adjournment was that the condition of public affairs did actually tend to revolution, and that instead of fanning the popular excitement by remaining in session, Congress would be thus most wisely allaying the fears which had entered the minds of so large a number of the people.

I shall endeavour to extract, from the midst of insult and contempt and maledictions, those admonitions which may tend to correct whatever imperfections such censurers may discover in this my first serious appeal to the Public.

So he went to his place and fell asleep and slept long, while the women went down to acre and meadow, or saw to the baking of bread or the sewing of garments, or went far afield to tend the neat and the sheep.

Such costly justice might tend to abate the spirit of litigation, but the unequal pressure serves only to increase the influence of the rich, and to aggravate the misery of the poor.

But these advantages only tend to aggravate the reproach and shame of a degenerate people.

In this fashion they ran for fifteen or twenty miles on a perfectly even keel, the apparatus automatically working the elevators and ailerons of the craft as various wind currents tended to disturb its equilibrium.

And with the painting finished, Brigit had spent the day at Akasha, tending to the plants that had been a bit neglected these last few days.

Human scholars, alas, tend to think solely in terms of human accomplishments.

While Gretchel was tending to the fire, Alayne padded barefoot across the room and slipped outside.