Gentle, protective, caring warmth.
Gentle, protective, caring warmth — affection inflected toward softness and solicitude, often physically expressed.
Affection inflected toward gentleness, fragility, and care, frequently shown in a touch, an embrace, or a quaver in the voice, with a protective edge toward someone vulnerable. Where affection and fondness name a settled liking, tenderness names the gentle, caregiving manner in which it is felt or shown. One of love's textures rather than the whole bond. Unlike compassion, it need not be a response to suffering; unlike broad, sociable warmth, it is intimate and focused.
From tender (c. 1200 “delicate, young, susceptible to injury”), from Latin tener “soft, delicate, youthful,” from PIE *ten- “to stretch.”
The affectionate sense is old, not a modern drift: “kind, affectionate, loving” is dated to the late 13c., developing early from the core “soft/delicate.” The literal “soft, not tough” (of food) and “sensitive to touch” senses persist in parallel. No reliable recent-generation shift.