Trend and Tend

Question

HiCan somebody pls tell me what is the difference between trend and tend?  It seems that they have the same meaning accroding to my dictionary.Cheers

Yankee · Accepted Answer

Hi Anon

One very big difference is that "tend" is used exclusively as a verb, and "trend" can be used as a noun or a verb. The word "trend" is probably used more often as a noun. The noun form of "tend" is "tendency".

As a verb, I'd say "trend" typically refers to a much more specific period of time or a more specific situation than "tend" does. Thus, you will often see the word "trend" used to talk about current inclinations.

Grammatically, you will frequently see "tend" followed by a to-infinitive (tend to do something), however the verb "trend" is never followed by a to-infinitive. The verb "trend" is sometimes followed by words such as "lower" or "upwards".

The verb "tend" also has another meaning ("care for or manage someone or something") that is quite unlike the meaning of "trend".

In order to get a better feeling for the way "tend" and "trend" are used, you could look at usage examples in the British National Corpus or in the American Corpus.

Anonymous · Answer

thanks

Trend and Tend

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