tenderly

English

Etymology

From tender +‎ -ly.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛn.dɚ.li/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɛn.də.li/
• Hyphenation: ten‧der‧ly

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Adverb

tenderly (comparative more tenderly, superlative most tenderly)

1. In a tender manner; gently; sweetly.
   • 1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC:

     and the hour striking at which I was oblig'd to dispatch my young man, I tenderly advised him of the necessity there was for parting

   • 2013, Victoria J. Hyla, Running in the Mists (Hearts Drawn Wyld Trilogy; 2), Bloomington, Ind.: AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 300:

     After a moment of comfortable silence, with Ben tenderly rubbing his thumb gently over the back of her hand, he asked, “So what do you want to do now that you’re all stuffed full of waffley goodness?”

   • 2019, “Sinking”, performed by Clairo:

     Outside is getting colder
     Why does it feel like I'm older than I asked to be?
     But when you say my name
     It all falls away so tenderly

Translations

in a tender manner

• Bulgarian: нежно (bg) (nežno)
• Catalan: tendrament (ca)
• Esperanto: tenere (eo)
• Finnish: hellästi (fi)
• French: tendrement (fr)

  Old French: tendrement

• Galician: tenramente
• Italian: teneramente (it)
• Norman: tendrément (Jersey)
• Plautdietsch: behutsom
• Polish: czule (pl)
• Portuguese: tenramente
• Russian: не́жно (ru) (néžno), мя́гко (ru) (mjáxko)
• Spanish: tiernamente (es)
• Swedish: ömt (sv)

Anagrams

• tendrely