tenement Meaning, Definition & Usage

noun a run-down apartment house barely meeting minimal standards
tenement house.

OF. tenement a holding, a fief, F. tènement, LL. tenementum, fr. L. tenere to hold. See Tenant.

(Feud. Law) That which is held of another by service; property which one holds of a lord or proprietor in consideration of some military or pecuniary service; fief; fee.
(Common Law) Any species of permanent property that may be held, so as to create a tenancy, as lands, houses, rents, commons, an office, an advowson, a franchise, a right of common, a peerage, and the like; -- called also free ∨ frank tenements.
The thing held is a tenement, the possessor of it a "tenant," and the manner of possession is called "tenure." Blackstone.
A dwelling house; a building for a habitation; also, an apartment, or suite of rooms, in a building, used by one family; often, a house erected to be rented.
Fig.: Dwelling; abode; habitation.
Who has informed us that a rational soul can inhabit no tenement, unless it has just such a sort of frontispiece? Locke.
Syn. -- House; dwelling; habitation. -- Tenement, House. There may be many houses under one roof, but they are completely separated from each other by party walls. A tenement may be detached by itself, or it may be part of a house divided off for the use of a family.