tenement

noun

ten·e·ment ˈte-nə-mənt

Synonyms of tenement next

: tenement house

: apartment, flat

: a house used as a dwelling : residence

: any of various forms of corporeal property (such as land) or incorporeal property that is held by one person from another

: dwelling

Example Sentences

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 The Baldwins lived in a succession of tenements, where Jimmy was often left to care for his brothers and sisters. —

Stephen Mooallem, Harper's BAZAAR, 4 May 2023 The production design turns the stage into a storybook version of New York, where tenement fire escapes provide an ideal perch for marveling at urban sunsets. —

Charles Mcnulty, Los Angeles Times, 26 Apr. 2023 Transy House was modeled after a shelter that Ms. Rivera had run with Marsha P. Johnson in the 1970s through their organization Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, first in a trailer truck in Greenwich Village and later in a former tenement building in the East Village. —

New York Times, 11 Mar. 2022 The screams came from a young Black woman who burst through the doorway of the Burton home—one of the largest in the neighborhood, an imposing two-and-a-half-story building with the family’s living quarters, adjoining a four-family tenement—and dashed up the street. —

Smithsonian Magazine, 30 Nov. 2022 When my grandparents lived in a tenement, the street was covered with pushcarts loaded with used goods. —

Ron Grossman, chicagotribune.com, 17 Aug. 2021 In this crumbling tenement. —

Krista Stevens, Longreads, 10 Aug. 2020 Eleanor Roosevelt, arguably the most empathetic first lady in history, not to mention most influential, was admired for going down into the coal mines of West Virginia or up into the tenements of the Lower East Side of New York City to visit the crowded neighborhoods teeming with immigrants. —

Eli Amdur, Forbes, 1 Apr. 2023 Kirby grew up in the Jewish tenements of the neighborhood, and like Steve Rogers was a short and scrawny kid who got constantly picked on by bullies. —

Roy Schwartz, CNN, 31 Mar. 2023 See More

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'tenement.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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

See more words from the same century