tenement
noun
a run-down and often overcrowded apartment house, especially in a poor section of a large city.
tenements
-
pluralof tenement.plural
The grammatical form denoting more than one person, place, thing, or idea.
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.
Her crusade reflected her earlier shock upon seeing Lower East Side tenements for the first time.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 24, 2026
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.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2025
Growing up in Glasgow's tenements, Lulu - whose name then was Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie - lived in a "war zone".
From BBC ● Sep. 23, 2025
It’s one of the world’s largest and densest slum clusters where families of six often live in 100-square tenements and 80 people may share a toilet.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 16, 2024
A steady flow of men and women from East Bengal—those who had sensed the early political convulsions before their neighbors—had already started to fill the low-rises and tenements near Sealdah station.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
