apartment
Americannoun
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apartments
plural
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a room or a group of related rooms, among similar sets in one building, designed for use as a dwelling.
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a building containing or made up of such rooms.
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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.
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British. apartments, a set of rooms used as a dwelling by one person or one family.
noun
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(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
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another name (esp US and Canadian) for flat 2
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( as modifier )
apartment building
apartment house
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Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
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.
See Examples For:
The Vatican said that Pope Leo "will leave the hospital in the early afternoon and return to the Vatican. Tomorrow he will recite the Angelus prayer from the window of the papal apartment".
From Barron's ● Oct. 17, 2026
Most frustratingly, Soni regularly fields requests from acquaintances and former guests offering to rent his apartment for a week or two at a time—off the books.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 17, 2026
I had invited them into my apartment expecting an awkward demonstration, but the work was remarkably thorough and spared me from having to do it myself.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
In fact, I took extra precautions in anticipation of having robot cleaners in my apartment.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026
I’m pretty sure it’s an apartment, but all I can see are boxes and white sheets draped over furniture.
From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy
And in February, she signed the Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, making it easier for property owners to convert commercial spaces into apartments.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2026
Zakhavko’s husband began scavenging for food in abandoned apartments early this year.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 11, 2026
The giant property stocks, real-estate investment trusts that own hundreds of thousands of apartments and single-family homes across the country, have been plunging for months.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026
Last week, the Indonesian ombudsman's office said an inspection had uncovered a cluster of indulgently furnished apartments inhabited by inmates on the grounds of the Cibinong prison in Bogor, south of the capital.
From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026
She even let us stay in one of the apartments so we wouldn’t have to drive home.
From "The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora" by Pablo Cartaya
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