Now rare and literary. Also 7–8 -ance. [ad. med.L. tendentia (Bonaventura, a. 1274; Duns Scotus, a. 1308), f. L. tendentem, pr. pple. of tendĕre: see TEND v.2 and -ENCE: cf. F. tendance (12th c. in Godef., Compl.).] = next.
1. = TENDENCY 1.
1627. Sanderson, Serm., I. 259. There shall appear … a direct tendance to the advancement of Gods glory.
1669. Gale, Crt. Gentiles, I. I. i. 7. The scope and tendence of this Discourse is to Demonstrate, that [etc.].
1714. R. Fiddes, Pract. Disc., II. 219. Afflictions have … a tendence to promote our spiritual good.
1833. Sarah Austin, Charac. Goethe, II. 331. A melancholy proof of the modern realistic tendence.
† 2. = TENDENCY 1 b. Also fig. Obs.
1644. Digby, Nat. Bodies, xi. (1658), 116. These atoms … are forced from the complete effect of their tendance, by the violence of the current.
1645. Owen, Two Catech., xii. Wks. 1855, I. 482, note. The death that Christ underwent was eternal in its own nature and tendence.
1698. Tyson, in Phil. Trans., XX. 118. The Tendence or Direction of the Muscular Fibres of this pair.
b. attrib.: tendence-writing, a writing with a purpose (Ger. tendenz-schrift). Cf. TENDENCY 3.
1875. M. Arnold, in Contemp. Rev., XXV. 968. Our Gospels are more or less Tendenz-Schriften, tendence-writings,—writings to serve an aim or bent of their several authors.
