Word.ws English Dictionary

tenant

/ˈtɛ.nənt/

tenant noun: one who holds a lease (a tenancy). Also the misconstruction of tenet.

Noun

tenant (plural tenants)

  1. One who holds a lease (a tenancy).
    • Long even before the last tenant had occupied it, the room had been regarded with fear and aversion, and the end of that last tenant had in no way lightened the gloom that hung about the place.a. 1945, Arthur Morrison, The Thing in the Upper Room
    • You are just a tenant here, you say / Living in and out of this life / As cheaply as you can1982, “The Sitting Room”, in The Sitting Room, performed by Anne Clark
  2. (broadly) One who has possession of any place.
    • sweet tenants of this grovec. 1782-1783, William Cowper, Joy in Martyrdom
    • the happy tenant of your shade1647, Abraham Cowley, The Wish
    Synonyms:
    dweller, occupant
  3. Any of a number of customers serviced through the same instance of an application.
    • multi-tenant hosting
  4. (historical) One who holds a feudal tenure in real property.
  5. (broadly) One who owns real estate other than via allodial title.

Verb

tenant (third-person singular simple present tenants, present participle tenanting, simple past and past participle tenanted)

  1. To hold as, or be, a tenant.
    Synonyms:
    lodge
  2. (transitive) To inhabit.
    • His thin legs tenanted a pair of gambadoes fastened at the side with rusty clasps.1814 July 7, [Walter Scott], Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Archibald Constable and Co.; London...
    • The felling of dense and lofty forests, which covered, even within the records of history, a considerable space on the globe, now tenanted by civilized man, must generally have lessened the amount of vegetable food throughout the space where these woods grew.1835, Charles Lyell, chapter IX, in Principles of Geology […] , 4th edition, volume III, London: John Murray, Book III, page 129

Proper noun capitalized: Tenant

Tenant (plural Tenants)

  1. A surname.

Also used as

tenant is also the misconstruction of tenet.

tenant meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

tenant in Hindi

किरायेदार, किराएदार

tenant in Tamil

குத்தகைதாரர், வாடகைதாரர்

tenant in Marathi

भाडेकरू, भाडोत्री, भाडेतत्वार

tenant in Urdu

one who pays a fee in return for the use of land, etc.
کِرایَہ دار kirāya dār
More languagesFewer languages
tenant in Bengali
ভাড়াটিয়া, ভাড়াটে
tenant in Telugu
అద్దెదారు, కౌలుదారు, కౌలుదారుడు
tenant in Malayalam
വാടകക്കാരൻ, വാടകക്കാരന്, വാടകക്കാരനെ
tenant in Kannada
ಹಿಡುವಳಿದಾರ, ಬಾಡಿಗೆದಾರ
tenant in Punjabi
ਕਿਰਾਏਦਾਰ
tenant in Gujarati
ભાડૂત bhāḍūt, કિરાયાદાર kirāyādār
tenant in Odia
ଭଡାଟିଆ, ଭଡ଼ାଟିଆଙ୍କୁ
tenant in Nepali
भाँडादार, भाँडादारलाई
tenant in Arabic
مُسْتَأْجِر mustaʔjir
tenant in Persian
مست, مستاجر mosta'jer
tenant in Vietnamese
chủ sở hữu, người thuê

Examples of tenant in a sentence

  • But not in silence pass Calypso's isles, / The sister tenants of the middle deep; [...]1812, Lord Byron, “Canto II”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh...
  • They lived in palatial residences[…]their harems tenanted by numerous women[…]1922, Maneckji Nusserwanji Dhalla, Zoroastrian Civilization, page 235:

All 40 example sentences with tenant

Synonyms of tenant

All synonyms of tenant

Forms of tenant

Noun
pluraltenants
alternative form (obsolete)tenaunt
alternative form (obsolete)tennant
alternative form (obsolete)tennaunt
Verb
third-person singular presenttenants
present participletenanting
past participletenanted
pasttenanted
Proper noun
pluralTenants

Plural of tenant: tenants

Origin of tenant

From Middle English tenaunt, from Anglo-Norman tenaunt and Old French tenant, present participle of tenir (“to hold”), from Latin tenēre (“hold, keep”).

Possibly just a modification of tenet, but note obsolete tenent (“tenet”).

Words formed from tenant

Phrases with tenant

Words that rhyme with tenant

Questions about tenant

What does tenant mean?
Tenant means one who holds a lease (a tenancy).
What is tenant in Hindi?
Tenant in Hindi is किरायेदार, किराएदार. See Tenant meaning in Hindi.
How do you use tenant in a sentence?
But not in silence pass Calypso's isles, / The sister tenants of the middle deep; [...]
What part of speech is tenant?
Tenant can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce tenant?
Tenant is pronounced /ˈtɛ.nənt/.
What is the plural of tenant?
The plural of tenant is tenants.

Words near tenant in the dictionary

  1. tenancy by the entirety
  2. tenancy for life
  3. tenancy in common
  4. Tenandra
  5. Tenani
  6. tenant
  7. tenant at will
  8. tenant farmer
  9. tenant farmers
  10. tenant in common
  11. tenant saw

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tenant (page history and authors); Tenant (page history and authors); tenant (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenant (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenant (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenant (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenant (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenant (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenant (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenant (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenant (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); tenant (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-tenant.wav.

Cite this entry: “tenant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tenant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.