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

My mother’s parents grew up in the same tenement building in Red Hook, Brooklyn, during the Great Depression, in the kind of poverty that might have been depicted by a Puerto Rican Charles Dickens. —Xochitl Gonzalez, The Atlantic, 12 Aug. 2024

Upon being granted probationary asylum, finding tenement housing, and teaming with a case worker named Mark (Smith), the couple’s fortune worsens further with an apparently evil force living in their home. —Will Harris, EW.com, 30 July 2024

Milk’s contemporary image-making began in mid-nineteenth century New York City, where a growing population crowded into tenements plagued by malnourishment and disease. —Catherine Long, JSTOR Daily, 17 Jan. 2024

Police and volunteers — including some of Joey’s school chums — searched every cellar, vacant tenement, alleyway, junkyard, and loft for nearly 80 blocks. —Mara Bovsun, New York Daily News, 7 Apr. 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