Library / English Dictionary

TENANT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who pays rent to use land or a building or a car that is owned by someone else

Example:

the landlord can evict a tenant who doesn't pay the rent

Synonyms:

renter; tenant

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("tenant" is a kind of...):

payer; remunerator (a person who pays money for something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tenant"):

leaseholder; lessee (a tenant who holds a lease)

boarder; lodger; roomer (a tenant in someone's house)

Derivation:

tenancy (an act of being a tenant or occupant)

tenant (occupy as a tenant)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Any occupant who dwells in a place

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("tenant" is a kind of...):

occupant; occupier; resident (someone who lives at a particular place for a prolonged period or who was born there)

Derivation:

tenancy (an act of being a tenant or occupant)

tenant (occupy as a tenant)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A holder of buildings or lands by any kind of title (as ownership or lease)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("tenant" is a kind of...):

holder (a person who holds something)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "tenant"):

cotenant (one of two or more tenants holding title to the same property)

life tenant (a tenant whose legal right to retain possession of buildings or lands lasts as long as they (or some other person) live)

tenant farmer (a farmer who works land owned by someone else)

Derivation:

tenancy (an act of being a tenant or occupant)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Occupy as a tenant

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Hypernyms (to "tenant" is one way to...):

dwell; inhabit; live; populate (be an inhabitant of or reside in)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

tenant (someone who pays rent to use land or a building or a car that is owned by someone else)

tenant (any occupant who dwells in a place)

tenantry (tenants of an estate considered as a group)

Credits

 Context examples: 

As they were surveying the last, the general, after slightly naming a few of the distinguished characters by whom they had at times been honoured, turned with a smiling countenance to Catherine, and ventured to hope that henceforward some of their earliest tenants might be our friends from Fullerton.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

He only desired me to observe a ruined building, upon the side of a mountain about three miles distant, of which he gave me this account: That he had a very convenient mill within half a mile of his house, turned by a current from a large river, and sufficient for his own family, as well as a great number of his tenants; that about seven years ago, a club of those projectors came to him with proposals to destroy this mill, and build another on the side of that mountain, on the long ridge whereof a long canal must be cut, for a repository of water, to be conveyed up by pipes and engines to supply the mill, because the wind and air upon a height agitated the water, and thereby made it fitter for motion, and because the water, descending down a declivity, would turn the mill with half the current of a river whose course is more upon a level.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

I know what is due to my tenant.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Mr. Williamson was the name of the tenant.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But, Crawford, though I refuse you as a tenant, come to me as a friend.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never lived much amongst them.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“'Tis like to be long,” said Mr. Peggotty, in a low voice, “afore the boat finds new tenants. They look upon 't, down heer, as being unfortunate now!”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It has often led him to be liberal and generous, to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

No, no, we shall all be justified when we see the tenants of High Gable at the next Guildford Assizes.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I gave due praises to every thing I saw, whereof his excellency took not the least notice till after supper; when, there being no third companion, he told me with a very melancholy air that he doubted he must throw down his houses in town and country, to rebuild them after the present mode; destroy all his plantations, and cast others into such a form as modern usage required, and give the same directions to all his tenants, unless he would submit to incur the censure of pride, singularity, affectation, ignorance, caprice, and perhaps increase his majesty’s displeasure; that the admiration I appeared to be under would cease or diminish, when he had informed me of some particulars which, probably, I never heard of at court, the people there being too much taken up in their own speculations, to have regard to what passed here below.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)