apartment
Americannoun
-
a room or a group of related rooms, among similar sets in one building, designed for use as a dwelling.
-
a building containing or made up of such rooms.
-
any separated room or group of rooms in a house or other dwelling.
We heard cries from an apartment at the back of the house.
-
British. apartments, a set of rooms used as a dwelling by one person or one family.
noun
-
(often plural) any room in a building, usually one of several forming a suite, esp one that is spacious and well furnished and used as living accommodation, offices, etc
-
-
another name (esp US and Canadian) for flat 2
-
( as modifier )
apartment building
apartment house
-
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of apartment
1635–45; < French appartement < Italian appartamento, equivalent to apparta ( re ) to separate, divide (verbal derivative of a parte apart, to one side) + -mento -ment
Explanation
An apartment is a private residence in a building or house that's divided into several separate dwellings. An apartment can be one small room or several. An apartment is a flat — it's usually a few rooms that you rent in a building. Your apartment might be in a fancy high rise with a doorman and an elevator, or over your parents' garage. Since the 1640s, an apartment has meant "separate rooms within a house," from the Italian word appartimento, which literally means "a separated place."
Vocabulary lists containing apartment
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A video circulating on social media shows a woman sobbing in the hallway of an apartment complex, hugging her dog, who was wearing a New York Knicks T-shirt, as six L.A. police officers stood by.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 16, 2026
My apartment walls feature not one, but two pieces of Berserk manga fan art.
From Slate • Jun. 14, 2026
In April, the median rent of a Manhattan apartment topped $5,000 for the first time as the vacancy rate slipped to a six-year low of 1.55 percent.
From Barron's • Jun. 14, 2026
"What will we do?" asks 76-year-old Mufid Basha, Abdulghani's son, in his tiny apartment.
From BBC • Jun. 12, 2026
Thirty minutes later we pull up to an apartment building.
From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
