Also 5 tenderon, tendrone, 5–6 -ren, -ringe, 7 -ering, 8 -ring, 9 -erone. [a. F. tendron bud, young sprout or shoot; also cartilage; f. tendre, TENDER a.: but see prec.]
1. A young tender shoot or sprout of a plant; a bud. Now rare.
14[?]. Stockh. Med. MS., I. 340, in Anglia, XVIII. 303. Take þe lewys of þe reed docke, Þe tendronys in þe mydward awey do knocke.
c. 1420. Liber Cocorum (1862), 34. Take tenderons or sauge … And stop one [cofyn] fulle up to þo ryng.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 488/2. Tendrone, of a vyne…, botrio.
1601. Holland, Pliny (1634), II. 28. So soon as new buds and tendrons appeare aboue ground from the root. Ibid., 196. The juice drawne and pressed out of the tendrons or yong sprouts of brambles.
1707. Mortimer, Husb. (1721), II. 152. Cut off all the Blossoms that are likely to bear no Fruit, also the small tendrings, the barren Branches.
1895. W. Raymond, Tryphena in Love, 5. The inconstant shade of leafy tendrons quivering in the wind.
† b. transf. A small branch, as of a vein. Obs.
1578. Banister, Hist. Man, I. 7. The little Tendringes or Spriggie braunches of veines.
2. (pl.) The cartilages of the ribs (esp. in Cookery, of a deer or calf).
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., V. i. (1495), f vij/2. The tendrenes of the ribbes defende the lyuer.
15[?]. Wyll Burke his Test. (Halliw.), 54. Bake dowcetts and tendrens and the liver rostid.
1768. Chron. in Ann. Reg., 170/2. The bill of fare … Venison, Tendrons, Quails.
1806. J. Simpson, Cookery (1816), 43 (Stanf.). The tenderones are the gristle bone of the breast of veal cut into thin slices.
1845. Bregion & Miller, Pract. Cook, 43. Tendrons (Veal), are found near the extremity of the ribs.
