TENEMENT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • 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

... walked through the tenement wards of New York, and I have seen enough want and crime and blasted virtue to condemn the civilization which produced them and which fosters ...

— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune

... an attic at the top of an old tenement, with dormer windows looking out on a wintry scene. Anne appeared, more ragged than ever, carrying a little basket of matches. It was evident that she was a match girl by trade, and that this was her wretched domicile. As she crept down the center of the stage, ill and wretched, for she was supposed ...

— Grace Harlowe's Plebe Year at High School - The Merry Doings of the Oakdale Freshmen Girls • Jessie Graham Flower

... of Whyte's old mate, Bill Johnson, died and the house of Whyte had an additional inmate in the shape of a tousled-haired little girl, removed from a tenement in Little Bourke Street, one of the lowest slums in Melbourne. When Amy Johnson found herself in the midst of these novel surroundings, and experienced the delights of new and warm clothing and of plenty of good things to eat, and the disagreeables ...

— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... events in Phelan's life had blazed their films upon his memory in a blinding flash. First there was Rose, and then there was that nightmare of a Coroner's case, when he had fled hatless and coatless down the stairs of a reeking east side tenement, pursued by the yells of a ...

— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... tankard, showed gallantly by night, but was garish by day, since gas is akin to froth, to which the sun is pitiless. But the cabaret had its customers, quiet folk who gathered in the evening to gossip and drink strange beverages, whereas its nearest neighbor on the boulevard side was an empty tenement, a despondent ghost to-day, though once it had rivaled the flaunting tankard. Its frayed finery told of gay sparks extinguished. A flamboyant legend declared, "Ici on chante, on boit, on s'amuse(?)" Joan always ...

— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

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