tenement

[ten-uh-muhnt]

noun

1. Also called tenement house. a run-down and often overcrowded apartment house, especially in a poor section of a large city.

2. Law.

   1. any species of permanent property, as lands, houses, rents, an office, or a franchise, that may be held of another.

   2. tenements, freehold interests in things immovable considered as subjects of property.

3. British.,  an apartment or room rented by a tenant.

4. Archaic.,  any abode or habitation.

tenement

/ ˈtɛnəmənt, ˌtɛnəˈmɛntəl /

noun

1. Also called: tenement building. (now esp in Scotland) a large building divided into separate flats

2. a dwelling place or residence, esp one intended for rent

3. a room or flat for rent

4. property law any form of permanent property, such as land, dwellings, offices, etc

Other Word Forms

• tenemental adjective
• tenementary adjective
• tenemented adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of tenement¹

1250–1300; Middle English < Medieval Latin tenēmentum, equivalent to Latin tenē ( re ) to hold + -mentum -ment

Word History and Origins

Origin of tenement¹

C14: from Medieval Latin tenementum, from Latin tenēre to hold

Example Sentences

“We lived a teeny tenement apartment on 29th and 2nd Avenue above the Wonderland Blues Bar,” Brooks says.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Ginsberg lives on the Lower East Side in what Hujar calls “the most rundown tenement,” not far from a cluster of the burned-out buildings that marked New York’s gritty ’70s.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Her family relocated 11 times before she was four years old; they were evicted and had to live with relatives; they moved into a rat-infested tenement building in Philadelphia.

Read more on BBC

In the first four years of her life, her family relocated 11 times, moving in with relatives after evictions, or into rat-infested Philadelphia tenements.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Scenes switch effortlessly from Prague, with its shadowy bridge looming over the Moldau, to a Brooklyn tenement, a busy office, a tony art gallery, and the roof of the Empire State Building.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• rookery 
• slum