To attend, wait on, look after.
1767. Wanted, a sett of good Hands, to load and tend on a Gundalo.—Boston-Gazette, Sept. 21.
1769. Silk Worms may be tended by every family.—Id., July 17.
1772. A Person that can tend Store, or wait on a private Gentleman.—Id., Nov. 23.
1772. Any Gentleman that wants a Person to tend on a Store or Warehouse may hear of one.—Id., Dec. 28.
1830. I made Stephen tend out for me pretty sharp, and he got my plate filled three or four times with soup.—Mass. Spy, Feb. 10.
1835. What say you to hiring out to me, to work mostly on the farm, and tend bar when I am absent?—D. P. Thompson, ‘Timothy Peacock,’ p. 41.
1836. I want him to tend a lightning rod.—Phila. Public Ledger, May 5.
1837. I can’t get behind the counter to tend the customers, without most backing the side of the house out.—J. C. Neal, ‘Charcoal Sketches,’ p. 113.
1844. He had, in his youth, sometimes tended a mill.—‘Lowell Offering,’ iv. 189.
1847. He told me, at the turkey-shooting last week, that he had engaged to tend horses this winter at the stage-tavern down on Roaring River, because he rather do it than keep school.—D. P. Thompson, ‘Locke Amsden,’ p. 57.
1856. Every thing seemed on a grand scale to me, and I for a moment forgot all things else in my anticipations of delight among my floral friends; of listening to the birds, and ‘tending’ the bees, and sporting with the butterflies.—Knick. Mag., xlvii. 251 (March).
1856. The process is exceedingly simple. Any one who has sense enough to own a farm can tend to it.—Herald of Freedom, Lawrence, Kas., April 6.
1857. Mick Casey used to ‘tend’ in ‘Carew’s Grocery’ on the corner.—Knick. Mag., xlix. 322 (March).
1857. I made up my mind I could do better than tend babies while you was gone, and I reckoned I might do something towards working them off.—J. G. Holland, ‘The Bay-Path,’ p. 379.
1862. I employed you to tend Sally for the scarlet-fever.—Knick. Mag., lx. 205 (Sept.).
1868. Several of my brothers had gone to Boston to “tend store” for brother Wright.—Sol. Smith, ‘Autobiography,’ p. 10.
1869. See BALANCE.
