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Synonyms

tenant

American  
[ten-uhnt] / ˈtɛn ənt /

noun

  1. a person or group that rents and occupies land, a house, an office, or the like, from another for a period of time; lessee.

  2. Law. a person who holds or possesses for a time lands, tenements, or personalty of another, usually for rent.

  3. an occupant or inhabitant of any place.

verb (used with object)

  1. to hold or occupy as a tenant; dwell in; inhabit.

verb (used without object)

  1. to dwell or live (usually followed byin ).

tenant British  
/ ˈtɛnənt /

noun

  1. a person who holds, occupies, or possesses land or property by any kind of right or title, esp from a landlord under a lease

  2. a person who has the use of a house, flat, etc, subject to the payment of rent

  3. any holder or occupant

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

verb

  1. (tr) to hold (land or property) as a tenant

  2. rare to dwell

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

  • nontenant noun
  • nontenantable adjective
  • tenant-like adjective
  • tenantable adjective
  • tenantless adjective
  • tenantlike adjective
  • untenantable adjective
  • untenanted adjective

Etymology

Origin of tenant

1250–1300; Middle English tena ( u ) nt < Anglo-French; Middle French tenant, noun use of present participle of tenir to hold ≪ Latin tenēre. See -ant

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

"For buyers, sellers, tenants and landlords there will be higher fees, less choice of agents if smaller ones can't compete," she said.

From BBC

Data-center developer Fermi has not secured a cornerstone tenant for its Project Matador campus in Amarillo, Texas.

From Barron's

And it didn’t matter that co-founder and CEO Toby Neugebauer tried to assure investors Monday that tenants would be signed, nor that he said the stock is undervalued.

From MarketWatch

A New York developer last year completed construction of a million-square-foot warehouse about 45 miles east of Atlanta, but couldn’t find a tenant.

From The Wall Street Journal

City Property insist the proposed rent would be up to 12 times higher than current costs if a commercial organisation were the tenants.

From BBC

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.