TENEMENT

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.

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.

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. 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.