tendency

English

Etymology

Ultimately from Latin tendere / tendō.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɛndənsi/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ten‧den‧cy

Noun

tendency (plural tendencies)

1. A likelihood of behaving in a particular way or going in a particular direction; a tending toward.

   Denim has a tendency to fade.

   I have a tendency to get bored after the first half an hour of a movie.

   There's a common tendency among first-game visitors to a casino to bet overcautiously.

2. (politics) An organised unit or faction within a larger political organisation.
   • 1974, James Boggs; Grace Lee Boggs, Revolution and Evolution, NYU Press, →ISBN, page 134:

     Mao launched the struggle against the vulgar materialist tendency within the party as early as 1937.

   • 1997, S. Onslow, Backbench Debate within the Conservative Party and its Influence on British Foreign Policy, 1948-57, Springer, →ISBN, page 234:

     In stark contrast to the Europeanist tendency within the party and the Suez Group, this group had a short history.

   • 2013, Richard Gillespie; Lourdes Lopez Nieto; Michael Waller, Factional Politics and Democratization, Routledge, →ISBN, page 83:

     It reinforced the position of the conformist tendency within the party, since the majority of the candidates were old politicians, many of them members of Papandreou's centre-left CU faction back in the mid-1960s.

Synonyms

• inclination
• disposition
• propensity
• penchant
• trend

Derived terms

• multitendency

Translations

likelihood of behaving in a particular way

• Albanian: tendencë (sq) f
• Arabic: مَيْل‎ m (mayl), نَزَعَة‎ f (nazaʿa)
• Armenian: միտում (hy) (mitum), տենդենցիա (hy) (tendencʿia)
• Azerbaijani: meyil (az), tendensiya
• Belarusian: тэндэ́нцыя f (tendéncyja), схі́льнасць (be) f (sxílʹnascʹ), нахі́льнасць f (naxílʹnascʹ)
• Bulgarian: тенде́нция (bg) f (tendéncija), скло́нност (bg) f (sklónnost)
• Catalan: tendència (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 趨勢 (zh), 趋势 (zh) (qūshì), 傾向 (zh), 倾向 (zh) (qīngxiàng)

• Czech: sklon (cs) m, tendence (cs) f
• Danish: tendens c
• Dutch: neiging (nl) f
• Esperanto: emo, inklino, tendenco
• Estonian: tendents
• Finnish: taipumus (fi)
• French: tendance (fr) f
• Georgian: ტენდენცია (ṭendencia), მიდრეკილება (midreḳileba)
• German: Tendenz (de) f (not often used in this sense, one would rather use a verb such as "zu (...) neigen" or tendieren)
• Greek: τάση (el) f (tási), ροπή (el) f (ropí)
• Haitian Creole: tandans
• Hebrew: נטייה \ נְטִיָּה‎ (he) f (n'tiyá)
• Hindi: प्रवृत्ति (hi) m (pravŕtti)
• Hungarian: irány (hu), tendencia (hu)
• Indonesian: kecenderungan (id)
• Italian: tendenza (it) f
• Japanese: 傾向 (ja) (けいこう, keikō), 趨勢 (ja) (すうせい, sūsei)
• Kazakh: нысай (nysai), үрдіс (kk) (ürdıs), тенденция (tendensiä)
• Korean: 경향(傾向) (ko) (gyeonghyang), 추세(趨勢) (ko) (chuse)
• Kyrgyz: тенденция (ky) (tendentsiya)
• Latin: prōpensiō f
• Latvian: tendence f
• Lithuanian: tendencija f
• Macedonian: тенденција f (tendencija)
• Malay: kecenderungan (ms)
• Malayalam: പ്രവണത (ml) (pravaṇata)
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: tendens (no) m

• Persian: گرایش‎ (fa) (gerâyeš)
• Plautdietsch: Läne n
• Polish: tendencja (pl) f, skłonność (pl) f
• Portuguese: tendência (pt) f
• Romanian: tendință (ro) f, înclinație (ro) f
• Russian: тенде́нция (ru) f (tɛndɛ́ncija), скло́нность (ru) f (sklónnostʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: тендѐнција f, скло̏но̄ст f

  Roman: tendèncija (sh) f, sklȍnōst (sh) f

• Slovak: sklon m, tendencia f
• Slovene: tendenca f, nagnjenje n
• Spanish: tendencia (es) f
• Swedish: tendens (sv), trend (sv), benägenhet (sv)
• Tajik: майл (tg) (mayl)
• Thai: แนวโน้ม (th) (nɛɛo-nóom)
• Tocharian B: rmamñe
• Turkish: eğilim (tr), tandans (tr)
• Ukrainian: тенде́нція f (tendéncija), схи́льність f (sxýlʹnistʹ)
• Uzbek: tendensiya (uz), mayl (uz)
• Vietnamese: khuynh hướng (vi) (傾向), xu thế (vi) (趨勢)