tenement
Etymology

From Middle English tenement, from Anglo-Norman tenement, from Old French tenement, from Medieval Latin tenimentum, from Latin teneō.

Pronunciation
  • IPA: /ˈtɛnɪmənt/
Noun

tenement (plural tenements)

  1. A building that is rented to multiple tenants, especially a low-rent, run-down one.
    • 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 5]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC ↗:
      He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements.
  2. (legal) Any form of property that is held by one person from another, rather than being owned.
    The island of Brecqhou is a tenement of Sark.
  3. (figurative) A dwelling; abode; habitation.
    • 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC ↗:
      Who has informed us that a rational soul can inhabit no tenement, unless it has just such a sort of frontispiece?
    • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:
      Where she came from no man could tell. There were some said she was no woman, but a ghost haunting some mortal tenement.
Synonyms Translations Translations
  • German: Mietshaus
  • Russian: арендованное имущество



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