crowded tenement
1
4.4
- noun
- /ˈkraʊdɪd ˈtɛnəmənt/
:
vivienda abarrotada
- The last words of Indian agents undone at the bar Clement posed in a crowded tenement.
Examples
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In dirty crowded tenements, we huddle here like rats.
Fiction book (1996) -
They make much of the fact that she lived in a "crowded tenement," but the only photos I've seen show a perfectly ordinary apartment building, not a rundown, rat-infested pile that the loaded word "tenement" would suggest.
Blog text (19) -
The family struggled to find space in their CROWDED TENEMENT as more relatives moved in.
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Residents of the CROWDED TENEMENT often faced challenges due to the lack of privacy and limited resources.
-
Living in a CROWDED TENEMENT can make it difficult for children to focus on their studies.
Synonyms
1
4.6
An old, run-down apartment building where many poor families live
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'an apartment building with a large number of occupants' is directly and compositionally derived from 'crowded' (filled beyond comfortable capacity) modifying 'tenement' (a multi-occupancy, low-cost apartment building). This simple adjective+noun combination follows standard compositional patterns found across languages and contains no idiomatic or metaphorical shift, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily understand it.
Etymology
The phrase crowded tenement comes from old city housing: a tenement was a cheap building split into many tiny rooms, and crowded shows lots of people packed inside. That's why it means 'an apartment building with cramped living conditions'.