TENEMENT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Tenement

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/tˈɛnəmənt/ Listen

noun

Tenement n.

1.

(Feud. Law) That which is held of another by service; property which one holds of a lord or proprietor in consideration of some military or pecuniary service; fief; fee.

2.

(Common Law) Any species of permanent property that may be held, so as to create a tenancy, as lands, houses, rents, commons, an office, an advowson, a franchise, a right of common, a peerage, and the like; called also free tenements or frank tenements. "The thing held is a tenement, the possessor of it a "tenant," and the manner of possession is called "tenure.""

3.

A dwelling house; a building for a habitation; also, an apartment, or suite of rooms, in a building, used by one family; often, a house erected to be rented.

4.

Fig.: Dwelling; abode; habitation. "Who has informed us that a rational soul can inhabit no tenement, unless it has just such a sort of frontispiece?"

5.

A tenement house.

Tenement house, commonly, a dwelling house erected for the purpose of being rented, and divided into separate apartments or tenements for families. The term is often applied to apartment houses occupied by poor families, often overcrowded and in poor condition.

Synonyms: House; dwelling; habitation. Tenement, House. There may be many houses under one roof, but they are completely separated from each other by party walls. A tenement may be detached by itself, or it may be part of a house divided off for the use of a family. In modern usage, a tenement or tenement house most commonly refers to the meaning given for tenement house, above.

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Etymology of 'Tenement'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tenement" Quotes from Famous Books

... which she directed her footsteps. Standing on one of the broken flags, which formed a rude sort of pathway to the door, she waited until the wood was emptied near by, and paying the man, requested the sawyer to commence sawing it forthwith; then lifting the latch softly, she entered the humble tenement. It contained one small room, poorly furnished, and with but few comforts. An old negro woman sat shivering over a few coals on the hearth, trying in vain ...

— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... against extremes of heat and cold, I have dwelt, at some length, upon the importance of constructing the hives in such a manner as to enable the bees to preserve, as far as possible, a uniform temperature in their tenement. In thin hives exposed to the sun, the heat is sometimes so great as to destroy the eggs and the larvae, even when the combs escape from being melted; and the cold is often so severe as to check the development of the brood, and ...

— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... to-day. A small, pinched, frame, ground-floor-and-attic, double tenement, with its roof sloping toward St. Mary street and overhanging its two door-steps that jut out on the sidewalk. There the Doctor's carriage stopped, and in its front room he found Mary in bed again, as ill as ever. A humble German woman, living ...

— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... climbed like a couple of cats, and leaping into the yard of an adjoining tenement, they ...

— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty

... the woods where my straw pointed and ran into a big dead stub. It was too old and rotten for Birds to use now, as well as too late in the season, so I got a pole and pushed it over, and I found the whole history of a tenement in that stub. First of all, a Flicker had come years ago and dug put a fine big nesting-place, and used it maybe two or three times. When he was through, or maybe between seasons, the Chickadees made a winter den of it, for there were some Chickadee tail-feathers in the bottom. ...

— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

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