1. Soft; easily impressed, broken, bruised or injured; not firm or hard; as tender plants; tender flesh; tender grapes. Deu 32. Song 2.
2. Very sensible to impression and pain; easily pained.
Our bodies are not naturally more tender than our faces.
3. Delicate; effeminate; not hardy or able to endure hardship.
The tender and delicate woman among you. Deu 28.
4. Weak; feeble; as tender age. Gen 33.
5. Young and carefully educated. Prov 9.
6. Susceptible of the softer passions, as love, compassion, kindness; compassionate; pitiful; easily affected by the distresses of another, or anxious for another's good; as the tender kindness of the church; a tender heart.
7. Compassionate; easily excited to pity, forgiveness or favor.
The Lord is pitiful, and of tender mercy. James 5.
Luke 1.
8. Exciting kind concern.
I love Valentine;
His life's as tender to me as his soul.
9. Expressive of the softer passions; as a tender strain.
10. Careful to save inviolate, or not to injure; with of. Be tender of your neighbor's reputation.
The civil authority should be tender of the honor of God and religion.
11. Gentle; mild; unwilling to pain.
12. Apt to give pain; as, that is a tender subject; things that are tender and unpleasing.
13. Adapted to excite feeling or sympathy; pathetic; as tender expressions; tender expostulations.