1.(Feud. Law) That which is held of another by service; property which one holds of a lord or proprietor in consideration of some military or pecuniary service; fief; fee.
2.(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 tenements or frank tenements. "The thing held is a tenement, the possessor of it a "tenant," and the manner of possession is called "tenure.""
3.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.
4.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?"
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