Loading page
say it: TEN-duhn-see
tendency is a noun meaning "an attitude of mind especially one that favors one alternative over others". It carries 4 recorded senses.
an attitude of mind especially one that favors one alternative over others
“he had an inclination to give up too easily”
“a tendency to be too strict”
an inclination to do something
“he felt leanings toward frivolity”
a characteristic likelihood of or natural disposition toward a certain condition or character or effect
“the alkaline inclination of the local waters”
“fabric with a tendency to shrink”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for tendency come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.