tenant farmer

American

noun

a person who farms the land of another and pays rent with cash or with a portion of the produce.

tenant farmer British

noun

a person who farms land rented from another, the rent usually taking the form of part of the crops grown or livestock reared

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of tenant farmer

First recorded in 1855–60

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:

tenant farmer

Watching the harvest, tenant farmer Mohamed Ragab, 40, doubts it will bring profit.

From Barron's ● May 15, 2026

The son of a tenant farmer, Walker and his family worried that an injury in his senior year could jeopardize his professional career and the millions of dollars awaiting him there.

From Slate ● Nov. 6, 2022

Meg Morrison is a tenant farmer near Newmachar.

From BBC ● Jan. 14, 2022

In April 1930, as the Great Depression descended, a White tenant farmer named Drew Farlow hired George Hughes to work his rented farm in Luella, about seven miles from Sherman.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 3, 2021

She was the wife of a tenant farmer; the farm, an especially windswept and lonesome one, was halfway between Garden City and Holcomb.

From "In Cold Blood" by Truman Capote

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023