tendentious

English

WOTD – 19 February 2016

Etymology

From tendency +‎ -ious, after German tendenziös.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɛnˈdɛnʃəs/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Adjective

tendentious (comparative more tendentious, superlative most tendentious)

1. Having a tendency; written or spoken with a partisan, biased or prejudiced purpose, especially a controversial one.
   • 2016 November 23, Karen Tumulty, “Trump backs away from some of his strident campaign promises”, in The Washington Post‎^[1]:

     President-elect Donald Trump abruptly abandoned some of his most tendentious campaign promises Tuesday, saying he does not plan to prosecute Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email system or the dealings of her family foundation, has an “open mind” about a climate-change accord from which he vowed to withdraw the United States and is no longer certain that torturing terrorism suspects is a good idea.

   • 2021 November 17, Anthony Lambert, “How do we grow the leisure market?”, in RAIL, number 944, page 37:

     It is a canard trotted out by lazy or tendentious journalists that nationalised British Railways lacked entrepreneurial flair.

2. Implicitly or explicitly slanted.

   As a supporter of the cause, his reports were tendentious in the extreme.

Derived terms

• tendentiously
• tendentiousness

 

Related terms

• tendency

Translations

tendentious

• Afrikaans: tendensieus
• Arabic: مُغْرِض (muḡriḍ)
• Armenian: please add this translation if you can
• Bulgarian: тенденцио́зен (tendenciózen), пристрастен (bg) (pristrasten)
• Catalan: tendenciós
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 偏頗的／偏颇的, 有偏見的／有偏见的, 傾向性的／倾向性的

• Danish: tendentiøs, tendensiøs
• Dutch: tendentieus (nl)
• Finnish: tarkoitusperäinen
• French: tendancieux (fr)
• Georgian: ტენდენციური (ṭendenciuri)
• German: tendenziös (de)
• Italian: tendenzioso (it)
• Japanese: 偏向した (henkou shita), 偏向的な (henkouteki na), 傾向的な (keikouteki na)
• Korean: 편향된 (pyeonhyangdoen)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: tendensiøs, tendentiøs

  Nynorsk: tendensiøs, tendentiøs

• Polish: tendencyjny (pl)
• Portuguese: tendencioso (pt)
• Russian: тенденцио́зный (ru) (tɛndɛncióznyj)
• Serbo-Croatian: tȅndenciōzan (sh)
• Slovene: tendenciọ̑zen
• Spanish: tendencioso (es)
• Swedish: tendentiös (sv), tendensiös

References

• “tendentious”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.