tend to

tend to

1. To focus or apply one's attention to someone or something; to take care of someone or something. You really need to tend to the lawn—it's getting pretty overgrown! I'm taking some time off of work to tend to my daughter while she is sick.
2. To be inclined or have a tendency to do something. Sarah has a lot more experience than me in this aspect of the business, so I tend to defer to her opinions on such matters. I tend not to believe rumors like these until I see some actual evidence.
See also: tend
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

tend to do something

to have a tendency to do something. Jill tends to play with her hair while she works. Sam tends to say things like that when he is upset.
See also: tend
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

tend to

1. Apply one's attention, as in We should tend to our business, which is to teach youngsters. This term uses tend in the sense of "attend." [1300s]
2. Be disposed or inclined, as in We tend to believe whatever we are told. This term uses tend in the sense of "have a tendency." [c. 1600]
See also: tend
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

tend to

v.
To apply one's attention to something; attend to something: I must tend to my chores before I can go outside.
See also: tend
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • be/have done with somebody/something
  • be in line with (someone or something)
  • better of
  • (someone or something) promises well
  • begin with
  • begin with (someone or something)
  • be rough on (someone or something)
  • bird has flown, the
  • beware of
  • beware of (someone or something)
References in periodicals archive
and then a midnight Mass, but it does tend to bother people if you separate the celebrations by language of culture.
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Nowadays, however, classical musicians tend to rely on publishers and editors to fill in our scores, and thus we have the "great divide" in classical music between performance and composition.
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In the absence of predators, the guppy lineages from the menacing steams didn't tend to die early, he and his colleagues report in the Oct.
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On one hand, specialties tend to be high margin grades; on the other, they tend to be short run with fussy customers.
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(7,9) Submandibular stones close to the hilum of the gland tend to become large before they become symptomatic.
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All workplaces now tend to the condition of the office.
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Educated girls tend to marry at a later age and raise healthier, better-nourished children.
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As people become less interested in and less focused on another person, they tend to angle their bodies away.
Body language speaks: reading and responding more effectively to hidden communication
Thin TPE layers tend to surrender heat rapidly in the cold cavity, and the drop in temperature tends to reduce bonding strength.
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In the process, these writers "took stock of what they tend to call the 'circumstances' of their faith," specifically, the "historical, imaginative, ritualistic, social, epistemological, and natural conditions in which English Protestantism tends to lapse, struggle, and thrive" (1).
Reid Barbour. Literature and Religious Culture in Seventeenth-Century England
Apparently, self-oriented perfectionists tend to set and to pursue rigid and unrealistically high standards for themselves, and to undertake stringent self-appraisal in an attempt to attain perfectionism and to avoid failure (Hewitt & Flett, 1991a, 1991b).
Graduate cooperative groups: role of perfectionism
"Early exiters" tend to have had a courtship of around three years; after marriage they rarely go out together and tend not to work on the relationship, so they fail.
YOUR PROBLEMS: HEALTH NEWS Don't put off the day
Feminist scholars tend to be critical of Victorian reform efforts, particularly those based on the penitential or home model, while scholars of social purity, particularly those based within a religious context, tend to ignore the coercive measures involved in the reform tradition.
Prostitution: Prevention and Reform in England, 1860-1914
Bush.) The other most-cited think tanks tend to be conservative ones like the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute.
Bias schmias
I find that women tend to keep a lot of things private in their profiles.
Two different worlds: when it comes to hooking up online, lesbians are from Venus and gay men from Mars. (Love & Sex On The Internet)