tenement

noun

ten·​e·​ment ˈte-nə-mənt 

1

a

: tenement house

b

: apartment, flat

c

: a house used as a dwelling : residence

2

: any of various forms of corporeal property (such as land) or incorporeal property that is held by one person from another

3

: dwelling

Synonyms

• apartment
• diggings [chiefly British]
• digs
• flat [chiefly British]
• lodgings
• suite

Examples of tenement in a Sentence

an exhibit of pictures showing the tenements of the New York City neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen during the 1920s

Recent Examples on the Web

When Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, first showed up alongside other Habitat volunteers at a decrepit tenement on New York’s Lower East Side in 1984, the cultural zeitgeist did a double take. —Marco Della Cava, USA TODAY, 30 Dec. 2024

Born to Jewish immigrants in a Lower East Side tenement, Aarons began his career as a combat photographer for the United States Military during World War II. —Elise Taylor, Vogue, 26 Dec. 2024

Meanwhile Tateh and his daughter work their way through the tenements toward better lives, encountering the radical Emma Goldman (Shaina Taub, who’s come over from Suffs and reveals her own musical’s debt to Ragtime’s genre in the process) and eventually intersecting with everyone else. —Jackson McHenry, Vulture, 31 Oct. 2024

People were running toward my grandparents’ tenement. —Al Pacino, The New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2024

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, "the holding of property, the property so held, building, dwelling," borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Medieval Latin tenementum, tenimentum, teneamentum, from Latin tenēre "to hold, occupy, possess" + -mentum -ment — more at tenant entry 1

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Phrases Containing tenement

• tenement house

Kids Definition

tenement

noun

ten·​e·​ment ˈten-ə-mənt 

1

a

: a house used as a dwelling

b

: apartment sense 1, flat

c

: tenement house

2

: dwelling

Legal Definition

tenement

noun

ten·​e·​ment ˈte-nə-mənt 

1

a

: any of various forms of property (as land) that is held by one person from another

b

: an estate in property

2

: dwelling

Etymology

Anglo-French, from Old French, from Medieval Latin tenementum, from Latin tenēre to hold