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Glite Dictionary
🤗 Gentle or kind 🍗 Easy to chew 👶 Very young 🦶 Easily hurt 🤝 To formally offer 🌱 Easily damaged 📄 An official offer 🚤 A small supply boat 💵 Official money 🧑‍🍼 A caretaker 🚂 A fuel car 🌊 Unstable in water
tender

tender

1 9.1
A car attached to a steam engine that carries fuel and water
  • noun
  • /ˈtɛndər/
  • Archaic
translation icon : vagón de abastecimiento
  • The steam engine needed a full tender to carry enough water and coal for the journey.
  • engine and tender

Examples

  • The engine and tender are placed beyond the bridge to show that they have crossed it.

    Academic text (2016)

  • The Consolidation No. 10 is the engine and tender that has just crossed a bridge.

    Academic text (2016)

  • Detail of London and North-Eastern Railway tender.

    Blog text (19)

  • At each stop were high stacks of wood, cut into pieces about three feet long, and several men were in readiness to throw the wood into the tender so that the locomotive could be fed.

    Fiction book (1992)

  • As the train rounded the bend, the tender followed closely behind the powerful locomotive.

  • The maintenance crew checked the tender for any leaks before it was filled with fuel.

Compounds

legal tender
  • Formal
4 4.0

Coins or paper money that the law says must be accepted for payment

tender loving care
  • Informal
2 2.5

Gentle, careful help and attention people give to someone or something that needs support

tender offer
  • Specialized
2 7.5

An offer to buy a company's shares at a higher price than the market

tender groin
7.0

A painful area where the leg meets the lower belly, often from a strain or injury

Surface Forms

tender singular
tenders plural

Morphology

tender = tend (opaque) = tend + er

Although the form fits 'tend' + '-er', the railroad sense names a specialized support car, which is not a meaning most learners can derive from the verb by a standard rule.

Etymology

Tender for the rail car that carries fuel comes from tend 'to take care of', because the tender 'looks after' the steam engine by carrying its coal and water.