tenement means A building that is rented to multiple tenants, especially a low-rent, run-down one. It carries an Arena rating of 1569, earned across 4 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, tenement ranks #454 of 42,762 for Qualifying, #1,426 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #1,584 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #4,004 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words.
tenement is pronounced /ˈtɛnɪmənt/.
Why “tenement” is a great word
A building, often in poor condition, divided into multiple separate dwellings for rent, especially to low-income tenants. From Middle English tenement, from Anglo-Norman tenement ("holding"), from Old French tenement, from Medieval Latin tenimentum, from Latin teneō ("to hold, possess"), first attested c. 1300. Unlike a condominium, which implies ownership and choice, or a manor, which evokes land and legacy, a tenement is purely a transaction of need. It is the smell of cabbage and coal dust in a shared stairwell, the perpetual damp seeping through cracked plaster, and the symphony of a dozen families' lives bleeding through thin walls—a vertical city of the forgotten, built on the simple, brutal arithmetic of rent.
Etymology
From Middle English tenement, from Anglo-Norman tenement (“holding”), from Old French tenement, from Medieval Latin tenimentum, from Latin teneō (“hold”).
noun
- A building that is rented to multiple tenants, especially a low-rent, run-down one.e.g.“He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements.” — 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 5]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
- Any form of property that is held by one person from another, rather than being owned.e.g.“The island of Brecqhou is a tenement of Sark.”
- A dwelling; abode; habitation.e.g.“Who has informed us that a rational soul can inhabit no tenement, unless it has just such a sort of frontispiece?” — 1689 (indicated as 1690), [John Locke], An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding. […], London: […] Eliz[abeth] Holt, for Thomas Basset, […], →OCLC:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.