tenement

noun

ten·​e·​ment ˈte-nə-mənt How to pronounce tenement (audio)
1
c
: a house used as a dwelling : residence
2
: any of various forms of corporeal property (such as land) or incorporeal property that is held by one person from another
3

Examples of tenement in a Sentence

an exhibit of pictures showing the tenements of the New York City neighborhood of Hell's Kitchen during the 1920s
Recent Examples on the Web
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
People were running toward my grandparents’ tenement. Al Pacino, The New Yorker, 26 Aug. 2024 Marcus was born in 1929, months before the Great Depression, and his family lived in a fourth-floor walk-up tenement in Newark, New Jersey. Lee Habeeb, Newsweek, 5 Nov. 2024 As the robber barons decorated their palaces and mused about their public responsibilities, slums and tenements were rife with disease, farmers struggled under crushing debts, and factory workers and miners risked death and dismemberment to eke out a living. Zephyr Teachout, Foreign Affairs, 8 Dec. 2020 While the disease is still a leading killer globally, U.S. death rates from tuberculosis fell as authorities enacted public health and welfare reforms, such as adopting child labor laws and extending greater oversight to overcrowded tenements and factories. Thomas J. Bollyky, Foreign Affairs, 28 Mar. 2020 See all Example Sentences for tenement 

Word History

Etymology

Middle English, "the holding of property, the property so held, building, dwelling," borrowed from Anglo-French, borrowed from Medieval Latin tenementum, tenimentum, teneamentum, from Latin tenēre "to hold, occupy, possess" + -mentum -ment — more at tenant entry 1

First Known Use

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 2

Time Traveler
The first known use of tenement was in the 14th century

Dictionary Entries Near tenement

Cite this Entry

“Tenement.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tenement. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.

Kids Definition

tenement

noun
ten·​e·​ment ˈten-ə-mənt How to pronounce tenement (audio)
1
a
: a house used as a dwelling
2

Legal Definition

tenement

noun
ten·​e·​ment ˈte-nə-mənt How to pronounce tenement (audio)
1
a
: any of various forms of property (as land) that is held by one person from another
b
: an estate in property
2
Etymology

Anglo-French, from Old French, from Medieval Latin tenementum, from Latin tenēre to hold

More from Merriam-Webster on tenement

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