tender-minded, a. (and n.)
[Parasynthetic, f. tender mind (tender a. 8): see -ed2.]
Having a tender mind; sensitive and idealistic (in W. James opp. tough-minded a.). Also absol. as n. Hence ˌtender-ˈmindedness.
| 1605 Shakes. Lear v. iii. 31 To be tender minded Do's not become a Sword. 1907 W. James Pragmatism i. 12 You will..recognize the two types of mental make-up that I mean if I head the columns..The Tender-Minded: Rationalistic, Intellectualistic, Idealistic, Optimistic, Religious, Free-Willist, Monistic, Dogmatic. Ibid. viii. 295 May not the claims of tender-mindedness go too far? May not the notion of a world already saved in toto anyhow, be too saccharine to stand? 1924 T. S. Eliot Homage to Dryden iii. 45 It is not cynicism, though it has a kind of toughness which may be confused with cynicism by the tender-minded. 1952 H. J. Eysenck in Mace & Vernon Current Trends Brit. Psychol. xvii. 210 Idealistic..tender-minded attitudes, such as those approving of church-going and religion, pacifism. 1965 Listener 28 Jan. 153/1 According to James, the tender-minded were those who could not endure the violation of a general law... Mathematics, he said, was the typical study of the tender-minded. 1972 H. J. Eysenck Psychol. is about People v. 202, I did in fact discover some evidence in favour of the notion that tender-mindedness and tough-mindedness were correlated with personality as hypothesized. |