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tend

[tend]

verb (used without object)

to be disposed or inclined in action, operation, or effect to do something: The particles tend to unite.

to be disposed toward an idea, emotion, way of thinking, etc.: He tends to be overly optimistic. Her religious philosophy tends toward pantheism.

to lead or conduce, as to some result or resulting condition: measures tending to improved working conditions; Governments are tending toward democracy.

to be inclined to or have a tendency toward a particular quality, state, or degree: This wine tends toward the sweet side.

(of a journey, course, road, etc.) to lead or be directed in a particular direction (usually followed by to, toward, etc.): a path tending toward the beach.

Origin:
1300–50; Middle English tenden < Middle French tendre < Latin tendere to stretch, extend, proceed

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Tend is one of our favorite verbs.

So is lollygag. Does it mean:

to spend time idly; loaf.

to swindle, cheat, hoodwink, or hoax.

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Example Sentences

True, people with college degrees tend to earn more.

And also people tend to cite more-recent articles and not go back in time to older ones.

But it is true that, within a single-currency zone, habitual surplus countries tend to be matched by habitual deficit ones.

EXPAND

True, people with college degrees tend to earn more.

And also people tend to cite more-recent articles and not go back in time to older ones.

But it is true that, within a single-currency zone, habitual surplus countries tend to be matched by habitual deficit ones.

In particular, dust and gases tend to obscure much of our view of the galaxy's structure.

Several studies have established that taller people today tend to live longer.

People tend to be on best behavior when they're being watched.

Young trees tend to be pyramidal, while older ones are more open or round topped.

European cities tend to be compact and densely populated with excellent transit systems.

Government press releases tend to be bland, earnest blather.

Most non-tenured people will tend to do this, even if they fight it.

The third cause of bias is that easily detected planets tend to be close to their stars.

Crowds tend to be wise only if individual members act responsibly and make their own decisions.

Facebook profiles tend to be accurate reflections of people s personalities.

And pencils are far preferable to pens, which tend not to work at temperatures below freezing.

Older trees tend to produce blooms on all branches and drop all their leaves before flowers appear.

Bits are as insubstantial as the ether, but they tend to be packaged in hard boxes.

We tend to underestimate the political power of physical places.

Recessions tend to temper ambitions, and it appears that even inaugural ceremonies may be on the chopping block at some colleges.

They tend to argue for exceptions to the harshness of the rules that must exist.

Except for females with offspring, black rhinos tend to be solitary creatures.

People tend to pick spouses with similar educations.

Wolves tend to go walkabout when their home pack's territory starts to get packed.

They tend to produce suckers, especially if their roots are disturbed by cultivation.

When an economic downturn rears its ugly head, science and medicine tend to stay the course.

Reality television stars tend to lack certain attributes: discretion, shame, gainful employment.

So they tend to linger on the story of their victory when they return to the hallways of the campus that almost was no more.

The paywall-builders tend to report a drop in online traffic.

Local architecture is an important part of any destination, but building shots tend to be dull.

When you see everyone doing something, you tend to do it yourself as well.

Those who don't have power tend to make fun of those who do.

Foods that grow in the same place tend to taste good together, as this pairing of blackberries and hazelnuts proves.

Networking gadgets tend to be ugly, bulky bastards with scant attention paid to aesthetics.

Married people tend to be healthier than single people.

Politicians tend not to pound on that topic too much.

So although old people tend to be less healthy than younger ones, their cheerfulness may help counteract their crumbliness.

Plant-eating animals tend to have longer intestines to aid in digesting fibrous material, a trait the black-and-white bears lack.

Previous research showed that people tend to find typical things more attractive, from watches to birds to faces.

Advances in the field tend to be incremental in the extreme.

Some kinds tend to get out of hand and need to be controlled.

Roller coaster connoisseurs tend to dismiss water rides as too slow, too tame, and too wet.

Hustvedt's novels tend to be as somber as they are intellectually invigorating.

The latter students tend to be older and typically enter with some college credits under their belt.

Firms that qualify for the index tend to be under the government's cosh.

When looking for first homes, reef fish tend toward noisy reefs, new experiments show.

Scientists have long wondered how corals manage to eke out a living in the nutrient-poor waters they tend to occupy.

We tend to think that inventing the wheel was item number two on our to-do list after learning to walk upright.

Only types with small leaves tend to be deer resistant.

But the rosiest outlooks tend to result in the biggest box office haul.

That's why birthrates tend to drop and suicide rates tend to rise.

The concert hall is dark and hushed, as such venues tend to be.

Among older workers, men tend to have spent longer studying.

The curves tend to follow the outline of the basin, suggesting the fractures formed in the aftermath of the impact.

After establishing relationships, you will note that they tend to attempt to create social hierarchies.

As it happens, notoriously vile gales also tend to occur at this time of year, so watch out.

Unpruned plants tend to become sparse and woody in the center.

We tend to attend only when something really exciting is in the bag.

They also tend to have less volatility, meaning they don't tend to ratchet up or down in price nearly so much.

In recessions, they tend to take steps to discourage new migrants and even get rid of existing ones.

Away from their homeland they tend to displace or eradicate the local ant populations as well as spiders and insects.

Controlling parents tend to have children who are academically above average but depressed.

Since zoos tend to preserve animal life far beyond what would be expected in the wild, they see a lot of elderly animals.

Avoid high-nitrogen fertilizers, which tend to block calcium uptake.

Men tend to get results that match their intent, although the degree of the effect is often small.

Little wonder that my professors in economics tend to have huge egos.

The lure of core inflation as a barometer is that headline inflation rates tend to be volatile.

These funerary statues were believed to help tend to the elite after death.

Others tend to see more similarities between fossils and opt for trees with fewer offshoots.

Schoolchildren in white uniforms play soccer in the cobbled streets, while elderly residents tend their backyard lemon groves.

Most tend to be biennials, but some can be coaxed into a second year of bloom if spent flowers are removed before they set seed.

The gun elements tend to be realistic toy replicas from eBay.

For starters, high-crime areas tend to have difficulty attracting retail businesses.

Furthermore, when markets do reach a bottom, high-yielding stocks tend to perform best in the subsequent recovery.

Usually animals that use stomach stones tend not to need tough beaks.

Mothers who formula feed tend to over feed their babies.

Gray-green leaves tend to drop off around bloom time, but this partly deciduous tree does not lose all of its foliage.

We tend to do a lot of afternoon shopping with our toddler daughter.

People tend to be moved by specific stories of suffering.

Richer people tend to work in air-conditioned buildings.

Frogs that live in trees tend to walk and climb, rather than hop.

In addition, intelligent people tend to pursue new, stimulating experiences to stave off boredom.

Hybrid tea bushes tend to have an upright, narrow, almost stiff look.

When drivers are looking to get more miles to the gallon, they tend to drive more slowly on the highway.

And their members, which tend to be large companies, can force their suppliers to sign up or risk losing business.

Other lunar regions tend to fluctuate between extreme heat and cold.

The increase in renewable energy–usually in the wrong place–will tend to increase losses.

Flexible canes tend to lean over, even to the ground, in heavy rain or snow add to my plant list.

Typical social gamers are in their forties and tend their virtual farms more than once a week.

I'd argue that people with high expectations of life tend to be less happy than those with low expectations.

Dark-colored roofs tend to absorb solar energy as heat, not as electricity.

Park managers tend to target invasive weeds such as red vetch with herbicides because they can outcompete native plants.

All appreciate some winter chill and tend to perform poorly where summers are hot and dry.

When they're really little they emulate their parents, but as they grow older they tend to look to other people.

Astronomers naturally tend to doubt that explanation but have had difficulty coming up with a better one.

Blues tend to be cool colors, especially the blues that drift toward purple.

And the bigger cities get, the more productive and efficient they tend to become.

Acidic ingredients also tend to make fish taste delicate and less fishy.

People who have a lot of it tend to get nasty with lawyers.

As firms donate more to politicians, they tend to disclose more.

More endemic species tend to inhabit the larger patches that are more removed from other areas.

In many animals, relatives tend to stay close, either sharing the same territory or living in neighboring ones.

Studies of group behavior suggest that the overconfident, outspoken individuals are the ones who tend to become the leaders.

As usual with these delegations, they tend to be a.

When one person gains weight, close friends tend to gain.

Women and members of minority groups tend to take longer than students.

One doesn't tend to think of oneself of having a condition.

Six long days a week you tend his fields and make him rich.

We tend to move closer to those who share our physical traits.

Folks from small towns and farms tend to see the only big town in the state as a paved jungle of noise, danger and depravity.

In mild-winter areas, flowers tend to form without stalks, so they are partly or completely hidden among the leaves.

Most women tend to behave in medical settings much as they do in social settings, doctors say.

My general sense is that if committees want materials submitted electronically, they tend to say so.

The poor tend to suffer disproportionately from inflation as wage increases tend to lag price increases.

Encourage students to notice that these areas tend to have a moderate climate, arable land, and proximity to oceans.

We all do tend to fatten up with age, although there.

If anything, juries tend to bend over backward for defendants in high-profile cases.

While flows tend to follow valleys, surges easily move up and over ridges.

Size would be the obvious answer, and research until now has shown that larger cats tend to have lower pitched calls.

Parents tend to be more protective of their daughters than their sons because the familial costs of pregnancy are higher.

These omnivorous giants tend to be solitary animals, except for females and their cubs, but at times they do congregate.

Because there is no photographer to intimidate, photobooth subjects tend to be much less self-conscious.

Because apricot trees tend to form too dense a canopy, open-center training is usually recommended.

Worse, those cords tend to slip and slide onto the floor beneath where they immediately multiply and tangle.

Asked about his background, in a state where such things tend not to be treated.

Vancouver enjoys a maritime climate, with mild winters and warm summers, though summers tend to be fairly short.

One result which did surprise the researchers was that men's genes tend to travel farther than women's.

People tend to eat as much as they're given, regardless of hunger.

The people-and especially artists-in this region tend to be highly independent and tolerant.

Eastern fence lizards in northern climates tend to hatch faster than lizards in southern climates, the researchers found.

On a large campus, college students tend to sell drugs unless they fear getting caught.

It is also eerily sentient, in the way that highly automated plants tend to be, with thousands of little baskets zooming about.

People tend to fight with whatever weapons they have at hand: stones, machetes, automatic rifles-and now satellites.

Second, leaves tend to cluster near ends of branches and twigs.

Robots tend to be designed with a specific task in mind, and their parts are built accordingly.

The women tend not to go to college, the men tend to go for a year before quitting to go on their mission.

And even more expensive buildings tend to be constructed to run-of-the-mill designs.

Weak wheels tend to bow when you turn, making it impossible to hold a clean line.

Animal lovers often tend to be misanthropes or loners, and so they transfer their affection to the creature in their control.

Although they tend to be short lived, they grow quickly and put on a good show.

Stocks with big opening-day pops, it seems, tend to fall.

Dead bodies in the water usually tend to sink at first, but later.

And even if they don't burn out, they tend to burn out the people around them, who can't withstand the pace.

They espouse the rhetoric of radicalism, but in reality they tend to shave a bit off their predecessors' legacy here.

Females are protective of their cubs but tend to ignore family rivalry over food.

Mothers' gestational diabetes might later tend to make their kids fatter.

Porcupine quills, sea urchin spines, even a common wood splinter in a finger all tend to break off and stay embedded.

Warm colors tend to make people feel good and look great.

The larger they are, the more performance they tend to offer, and that's the metric that drives a market still ruled by.

Women, for example, tend to distort their perceptions of their bodies negatively.

The best writers tend to be able to rattle off the name of their favorite book on writing.

The rub is that unequal countries also tend to be less healthy.

Fish tend to inspire exaggerated tales, as anglers know all too well.

Scientists monitor the brains of teens listening to songs and find the breakout hits tend to share certain neural signatures.

But one caveat: breast halves tend to vary in weight.

First, morphs tend to be prettier than their sources because face asymmetries and skin blemishes average out.

Older people tend to have lower aspirations or, to put it in a more positive way, greater acceptance.

PI's with long and successful track records also tend to be in regular contact with their key sources of support.

Debates about the extent to which tax and welfare policy should redistribute wealth from rich to poor tend to be.

Ants that work cooperatively can handle bigger seeds, while ants that tend to work alone bury smaller seeds.

Their sons tend to be more crime-prone than sons of two-parent families.

Young trees tend to be irregular in form and benefit from early training and pruning.

Because they've less distance to travel, they tend to arrive home first in the summertime and to live in prime forest-edge spots.

Despite the rhetoric about needing workers with an international outlook, employers tend to rank study abroad low.

Increased trade flows mean more customers on the move, and banks tend to follow their customers.

Western lowland gorillas tend to be a bit smaller than their mountain cousins.

All summer you water and tend your vegetables, and finally they're ready to harvest.

In person, speakers tend to direct their eyes to whomever they expect to pipe up next.

If they lie and cheat routinely in one domain, they tend to do it in others as well.

Students who earn higher grades also tend to give more positive evaluations.

But bundles of personality traits do tend to cluster together in people.

For example, scientists don't know how long sea dragons tend to live.

Lightweight vehicles tend to be more nimble than heavier cars and can therefore evade accidents more readily in the first place.

We tend to think of the ground beneath our feet as solid, steady, and unchanging.

Solar storms tend to occur near sunspots, cool regions on the sun's surface that appear as dark blotches.

We tend to regard pain as an unfortunate by-product of physical harm.

COLLAPSE

Dictionary.com Unabridged

verb (used with object)

to attend to by work or services, care, etc.: to tend a fire.

to look after; watch over and care for; minister to or wait on with service: to tend the sick.

Nautical. to handle or attend to (a rope).

verb (used without object)

to attend by action, care, etc. (usually followed by to).

Verb phrase

tend on/upon, Archaic. to attend or wait upon; minister to; serve: She tended on the sick and dying with infinite compassion.

Origin:
1300–50; Middle English tenden, aphetic variant of attend

Link To tend

Collins

World English Dictionary

tend¹ (tɛnd)

—vb (when intr, usually foll by to or towards)
1.	(when tr, takes an infinitive) to have a general disposition (to do something); be inclined: children tend to prefer sweets to meat
2.	(intr) to have or be an influence (towards a specific result); be conducive: the party atmosphere tends to hilarity
3.	(intr) to go or move (in a particular direction): to tend to the south

[C14: from Old French tendre, from Latin tendere to stretch]

tend² (tɛnd)

—vb (when intr, often foll by to) (often foll by to)
1.	(tr) to care for: to tend wounded soldiers
2.	to attend (to): to tend to someone's needs
3.	(tr) to handle or control: to tend a fire
4.	informal chiefly (US), (Canadian) to pay attention

[C14: variant of attend]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

tend

"to incline, to move in a certain direction," c.1350, from O.Fr. tendre "stretch, hold forth, offer" (11c.), from L. tendere "to aim, stretch, extend" (see tenet).

EXPAND

tend

"attend to," early 14c., aphetic of M.E. atenden (see attend).

COLLAPSE

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"People tend to box little girls in. They teach them to sit properly and stand quietly and not attract attention. Sports is one place where girls can be free and enjoy the exhilaration of movement."

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