tenement









tenement


noun

  1. Also called tenement house. a run-down and often overcrowded apartment house, especially in a poor section of a large city.
  2. Law.
    1. any species of permanent property, as lands, houses, rents, an office, or a franchise, that may be held of another.
    2. tenements,freehold interests in things immovable considered as subjects of property.
  3. British. an apartment or room rented by a tenant.
  4. Archaic. any abode or habitation.

noun

  1. Also called: tenement building (now esp in Scotland) a large building divided into separate flats
  2. a dwelling place or residence, esp one intended for rent
  3. mainly British a room or flat for rent
  4. property law any form of permanent property, such as land, dwellings, offices, etc

n.c.1300, “holding of immovable property” (such as land or buildings,) from Anglo-French (late 13c.) and Old French tenement (12c.), from Medieval Latin tenementum “a holding, fief” (11c.), from Latin tenere “to hold” (see tenet). The meaning “dwelling place, residence” is attested from early 15c.; tenement house “house broken up into apartments, usually in a poor section of a city” is first recorded 1858, American English, from tenament in an earlier sense (especially in Scotland) “large house constructed to be let to a number of tenants” (1690s).

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