From Middle English tenaunt, from Anglo-Norman tenaunt and Old French tenant, present participle of tenir ("to hold"), from Latin tenēre, present active infinitive of teneō ("hold, keep").

• IPA: /ˈtɛ.nənt/, enPR: tĕnənt

tenant (plural tenants)

1. One who holds a lease (a tenancy).

   Synonyms: renter, lessee, rentee

   Hyponyms: subtenant, undertenant, sublessee, underlessee

2. (by extension) One who has possession of any place.

   Synonyms: dweller, occupant

   • c. 1782-1783, William Cowper, Joy in Martyrdom

     sweet tenants of this grove

   • 1647, Abraham Cowley, The Wish:

     the happy tenant of your shade

   • 1812, Lord Byron, “Canto II”, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: Printed for John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC ↗, stanza XXVIII, page 75 ↗:

     But not in silence pass Calypso's isles, / The sister tenants of the middle deep; [...]

   • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, Canto XVI, page 26 ↗:

     What words are these have fall’n from me?
     ⁠Can calm despair and wild unrest
     ⁠Be tenants of a single breast,
     Or sorrow such a changeling be?

3. (computing) Any of a number of customers serviced through the same instance of an application.

   multi-tenant hosting

4. (chiefly, historic) One who holds a feudal tenure in real property.
5. (property law, by extension) One who owns real estate other than via allodial title.

• tenement

• French: locataire
• German: Mieter, Pächter
• Italian: inquilino, locatario
• Portuguese: inquilino
• Russian: аренда́тор
• Spanish: inquilino, arrendatario

• French: occupant
• German: Bewohner, Mieter
• Russian: жиле́ц
• Spanish: habitante, residente

• German: Eigentümer, Besitzer
• Russian: владелец
• Spanish: propietario, dueño

tenant (tenants, present participle tenanting; simple past and past participle tenanted)

1. To hold as, or be, a tenant.

   Synonyms: lodge

2. (transitive) To inhabit.
   • 1814 July 6, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, 'Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh:  […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, →OCLC ↗:

     His thin legs tenanted a pair of gambadoes fastened at the side with rusty clasps.

   • 1835, Charles Lyell, chapter IX, in Principles of Geology […] , 4th edition, volume III, London: John Murray, Book III, page 129 ↗:

     The felling of dense and lofty forests, which covered, even within the records of history, a considerable space on the globe, now tenanted by civilized man, must generally have lessened the amount of vegetable food throughout the space where these woods grew.

• French: louer
• German: mieten
• Russian: арендова́ть

Possibly just a modification of tenet, but note obsolete tenent.

1. Misconstruction of tenet

1. Surname.