[f. as TENDENCE: see -ENCY.]
1. The fact or quality of tending to something; a constant disposition to move or act in some direction or toward some point, end, or purpose; leaning, inclination, bias, or bent toward some object, effect, or result.
1628. T. Spencer, Logick, 53. If any inquire how tendency … can haue an actuall exercise vnto doing.
1671. Flavel, Fount. Life, vii. He did not … do an Act … but it had some Tendency to promote the great Design of our Salvation.
1679. C. Nesse, Antid. agst. Popery, Ded. 6. Gods prevalent actings, in tendency to our deliverance.
a. 1680. Butler, Rem. (1759), II. 185. He seldom converses but with Men of his own Tendency.
1710. J. Clarke, Rohault’s Nat. Phil. (1729), I. 80. A Body in Motion has always a Tendency to describe that Line, which it would describe if it were at liberty.
1778. [W. Marshall], Minutes Agric., 13 Sept. an. 1774. Placed … with their points tending forward, the line of their tendency making an angle with the horizon of about 45°.
1806. A. Hunter, Culina (ed. 3), 104. Where there is a gouty tendency, this dish must seldom be indulged in.
1870. Jevons, Elem. Logic, xxxi. 267. A tendency … is a cause which may or may not be counteracted.
1870. J. H. Newman, Gram. Assent, II. viii. 313. A regular polygon, inscribed [in a circle], its sides being continually diminished, tends to become that circle, as its limit; but … its tendency to be the circle, though ever nearer fulfilment, never in fact gets beyond a tendency.
1903. J. K. Jerome, Tea Table Talk, 129–30. She is quite content so long as she can detect in herself no tendency to male vices, forgetful that there are also feminine vices.
† b. Movement or advance in the direction of something; a making toward something. Obs.
1654. Z. Coke, Logick, A ij. As if the Donations of Heaven were opposed, subordinated in mans tendency to Bliss and Glory.
1661. Blount, Glossogr. (ed. 2), Tendency … a going forward, a making toward.
1721. Bradley, Philos. Acc. Wks. Nat., 1. Which time of their Tendency to Perfection I shall … call the Time of their Growth.
c. Drift, trend, or aim of a discourse; in recent use, conscious or designed purpose of a story, novel, or the like. (= Ger. tendenz.)
1732. Berkeley, Alciphr., II. § 21. Upon hearing this, and other lectures of the same tendency.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 153, ¶ 2. My narrative has no other tendency than to illustrate and corroborate your own observations.
1791. Burke, App. Whigs, Wks. VI. 132. Neither can they shew any thing in the general tendency and spirit of the whole work unfavourable to a rational and generous spirit of liberty.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Demerara, i. 12. The tendency of all he said was to prove his own merits.
† 2. A relation to, or bearing upon something.
1651. Baxter, Inf. Bapt., 195. They will say that all their obedience hath no other tendency to their salvation and finall Absolution, but as meer signs.
3. attrib. Tendency drama, novel, story, one composed with an unexpressed but definite purpose. [After Ger. tendenz-drama, -roman, etc.]
1838. De Morgan, Ess. Probab., 23. They may all be referred either to that [assertion] just made, or to a tendency argument of the same character.
1889. J. Jacobs, Æsop, 206. The Fable … is a Moral Tendency-Beast-Droll.
1909. Cent. Dict., Suppl., Tendency theory … the theory of the Tübingen school that the books of the New Testament … were put together for the purpose of upholding current opinions, and that they thus have a ‘tendency.’
