Meaning of untender | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Not soft; harsh.
2. Lacking sympathy, heartless, not empathetic.

Examples

“c.1603-1606, The Tragedy of King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1, Cordelia: Good my lord, / You have⟳ begot me, bred me, lov'd me: I / Return⟳ those duties back as are right fit, / Obey⟳ you, love⟳ you, and most honour you. / Why have⟳ my sisters husbands if they say⟳ / They love⟳ you all? Haply, when I shall wed, / That lord whose hand must take⟳ my plight shall carry⟳ / Half my love⟳ with him, half my care and duty: / Sure I shall never marry⟳ like⟳ my sisters, To love⟳ my father all. Lear: But goes thy heart with this? Cordelia: Ay, good my lord. Lear: So young, and so untender? Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true.”

“I had not been ungenerous on the whole, / Nor yet untender;”

“He was the first-born of his mother, but in nowise like⟳ her—she being the ugliest, stupidest, and most untender of feline animals. Her very kittens she would carry⟳ into damp corners, and under grates, and there forsake⟳ them, to be trampled to death or shovelled unwittingly on the back of the fire : […].”

“a. 1874, Henry James, Master Eustace, in 1999, Complete⟳ Stories,1864-1874, page 656, Her parents had frowned on him and forced her into a marriage with poor dissolute Mr. Garnyer — a course the more untender as he had already spent half his own⟳ property and was likely to make⟳ sad havoc with his wife's.”

“She would let⟳ me know⟳ in a most untender manner if Brother Fielding told her I wasn't proficient.”

CEFR level