tenement, tenement house
(noun) a run-down apartment house barely meeting minimal standards
Source: WordNet® 3.1
tenement (plural tenements)
A building that is rented to multiple tenants, especially a low-rent, run-down one.
(legal) Any form of property that is held by one person from another, rather than being owned.
(figurative) Dwelling; abode; habitation.
• (building): tenement house, apartment building
Source: Wiktionary
Ten"e*ment, n. Etym: [OF. tenement a holding, a fief, F. tènement, LL. tenementum, fr. L. tenere to hold. See Tenant.]
1. (Feud. Law)
Definition: 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.
2. (Common Law)
Definition: 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 or frank tenements. The thing held is a tenement, the possessor of it a "tenant," and the manner of possession is called "tenure." Blackstone.
3. 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.
4. 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. Tenement house, commonly, a dwelling house erected for the purpose of being rented, and divided into separate apartments or tenements for families. The term is often applied to apartment houses occupied by poor families.
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.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
3 July 2025
(noun) the faculty through which the external world is apprehended; “in the dark he had to depend on touch and on his senses of smell and hearing”
The Boston Tea Party helped popularize coffee in America. The hefty tea tax imposed on the colonies in 1773 resulted in America switching from tea to coffee. In the lead up to the Revolutionary War, it became patriotic to sip java instead of tea. The Civil War made the drink more pervasive. Coffee helped energize tired troops, and drinking it became an expression of freedom.
