tendency
A tendency is a way that people or things naturally lean towards something. It's like having a leaning tower - it doesn't mean the whole building will fall over, but it does slope in one direction.
When we talk about tendencies, we usually mean patterns of behavior or directions that things tend to go. For example, if you know someone who always tends to be late for appointments, that's their tendency. If a country has a tendency to import more than it exports, that's an economic pattern. Tendencies can also be physical - like a slope in the ground that makes water flow downhill. In general, when we say something has a tendency, we mean it often goes in one direction or behaves in a certain way.
How common is "tendency"?
It appears most frequently in academic texts and less often in other writings.
noun
A likelihood of behaving in a particular way or going in a particular direction; a tending toward.
Example: Denim has a tendency to fade.
Real examples of "tendency" in context
