- tendency
- tendency, trend, drift, tenor can mean a movement or course having a particular direction and character or the direction and character which such a movement or course takes.Tendency usually implies an inherent or acquired inclination in a person or thing that causes him or it to move in a definite direction so long as no one or nothing interferes. Often, when used in reference to persons, the word means little more than leaning, propensity, or disposition{
a growing tendency to disastrously under-estimate the potential strength of the United States— Shirer
}{he worked to destroy the tendency to dreams in himself— Anderson
}More often, especially when used in reference to groups or communities or their activities or the course or direction they take with or without consciousness or intent, the term implies a driving force behind the direction or course taken and an insusceptibility to its being controlled or changed{gave the King a policy at once plausible and insidious, temporizing and yet thick with tendency— Hackett
}{the whole tendency of evolution is towards a diminishing birthrate— Ellis
}{the tendencies which Lycurgus had endeavored to repress by external regulation reasserted themselves— Dickinson
}Trend is used primarily in reference to something that follows an irregular or winding course and denotes the general direction maintained in spite of these irregularities{jagged ranges of mountains with a north and south trend
}In its extended use trend may differ from tendency in implying a direction subject to change through the interposition of a sufficiently strong force or agency, in implying a course taken at a given time by something subject to change and fluctuation, or in implying the general direction followed by a changing or fluctuating thing throughout its entire course or within given limits of space or of time{the current trends toward intolerance and the garrison state— Mowrer
}{Aristotle, the most balanced of all the Greek thinkers and the best exponent of the normal trend of their ideas— Dickinson
}Drift may apply to a tendency whose direction or course is determined by such external influences as a wind or the movement of flowing water or a fashion or a state of feeling{the drift of public opinion went steadily against him— Parrington
}{stoutly opposed the drift toward national prohibition and equal suffrage— Sam Acheson
}but it may apply also to the direction or course taken by something (as speech, writing, or teaching) that has a meaning, a purpose, or an objective which is not definitely stated or made clear but which is inferable; in this sense the word is scarcely distinguishable from intention, purport, or import{for the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by a veil— Tennyson
}{write it down . . . and then maybe I can get the drift of it— Stafford
}{I see the whole drift of your argument— Goldsmith
}Tenor is a very close synonym of drift in this latter sense but it more often refers to utterances or documents and carries a much stronger implication of clearness of meaning or purport{the general tenor ... of the talks— Bernard Smith
}Both in this sense and in its more common sense of a course or movement having a particular clearly observable direction tenor carries a strong implication of continuity in that course and of absence of fluctuation in its direction; therefore it frequently suggests unaltered, often unalterable, procedure{along the cool sequestered vale of life they kept the noiseless tenor of their way— Gray
}{the village . . . was . . . away from the main road and the tenor of its simple agricultural economy had not been disturbed— lengar
}{even a foible is forgiven so long as it ruffles not the calm tenor of respectability— Gogarty
}
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
