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What does "tenement" mean?

Tenement: (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 or frank tenements. The thing held is a tenement, the possessor of it a "tenant," and the manner of possession is called "tenure." Blackstone.

Additional senses

  1. 2.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.
  2. 3.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. -- 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.

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