tenantry
1
9.1
A group of people who rent houses or land on an estate
- noun
- /ˈtɛnəntri/
- Archaic
:
inquilinos
- After years of neglect, the estate finally invested in improvements for the tenantry to enhance their living conditions.
Examples
-
The landlord held a meeting to address concerns raised by the tenantry about the condition of the housing.
-
The success of the farm depended on the cooperation of the tenantry in maintaining their plots.
-
There was no split between free farmers and tenantry, no five dark centuries of saints and wolves—nothing redolent of the rise and fall of empires, nothing like that was here.
Fiction book (1991)
How Many
tenantry
1
9.1
- Archaic
1
9.1
tenantless
1
6.1
1
6.1
Surface Forms
tenantry singular
tenantries plural
Morphology
Etymology
Tenantry comes from tenant, a person who rents or 'holds' land, plus the ending -ry that turns it into a group. The root is the old Latin word tenere meaning 'to hold', the same idea in tenure, so tenantry means the group of people who 'hold' or live on an estate.