tenement

noun

Etymology: From Middle English tenement, from Anglo-Norman tenement (“holding”), from Old French tenement, from Medieval Latin tenimentum, from Latin teneō (“hold”).

1. A building that is rented to multiple tenants, especially a low-rent, run-down one.

   “He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in the lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade’s timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins and tenements.”

2. Any form of property that is held by one person from another, rather than being owned.

   “The island of Brecqhou is a tenement of Sark.”

3. A dwelling; abode; habitation.

   “Who has informed us that a rational soul can inhabit no tenement, unless it has just such a sort of frontispiece?”

   “Where she came from no man could tell. There were some said she was no woman, but a ghost haunting some mortal tenement.”