Other forms: tenants
A tenant is the person who rents the place they live in — the one who pays the rent rather than collects it. Signing a year's lease, ringing the landlord about a boiler that will not light, hoping the deposit comes back in full at the end.
Shops and offices have tenants too: a shopping centre courts an anchor tenant to pull shoppers in, and a building loses its tenants when the rent climbs. A tenant farmer works land that belongs to somebody else. The person on the other side of the agreement is the landlord, and the arrangement itself is a tenancy. Do not mix tenant up with tenet, a belief that someone holds — the two look alike on the page and share nothing at all.
1nountenantA person who pays rent to live in or use property belonging to someone else.
“The new tenant moved in a week after the flat was painted.”
synonyms: renter, lessee, occupant
2nounbusinessA business that rents space in a building or a development.
“The mall lost three tenants in a single year.”
tenant is a person who rents property.
Tenant came through Anglo-Norman tenaunt from Old French tenant, the present participle of tenir, to hold. Behind that stands Latin teneō, to hold or keep, and behind that the Proto-Indo-European root *ten-. A tenant is, word for word, one who is holding — not owning, holding.
Proto-Indo-European
*ten-
Latin
teneō — hold, keep
Old French
tenant
Anglo-Norman
tenaunt
Middle English
tenaunt
English, today
tenant
Built from
From Middle English tenaunt, from Anglo-Norman tenaunt and Old French tenant, present participle of tenir (“to hold”), from Latin teneō (“hold, keep”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA