ˈtenəmənt noun
( -s )
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Medieval Latin tenementum, from Latin tenēre to hold + -mentum -ment — more at thin
1.
a. : something that is held by tenure : land or any of various forms of incorporeal property (as an inheritable estate, an estate for life, or an estate for years) treated like land that is held by a person of another or as owner : holding
b. : a freehold estate in a corporeal or an incorporeal hereditament as distinguished from a less estate (as an estate for a term of years)
2.
a. : a house used as a dwelling : residence
b. : a single room or set of rooms for use by one tenant or family : apartment , flat
a vacant second-floor tenement — Springfield (Massachusetts) Union
c. Scotland : an edifice of several houses separately tenanted
d. : tenement house
the bare flat at the top of an ugly tenement — Marjorie Earl
3.
a. : dwelling habitation
whole roads and tenements of experience poorly mapped — C.D.Lewis
b. : a human body in which the soul is held to have a temporary dwelling place
beholds man trapped in the tenement of flesh — C.I.Glicksberg