tenants

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of tenant.

   The landlord notified all tenants about the upcoming rent increase.

   Several tenants complained to the city about the broken heating.

   Note

   The plural carries every meaning tenant has, not only renters holding a lease. Historians use it for people who held land under feudal tenure, and software engineers use it for the customers served by one shared instance of an application. One trap to avoid: "the tenants of the faith" is a slip for tenets, the principles a belief rests on. Tenants occupy places; tenets are held as ideas.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of tenant.

   A retired couple now tenants the old farmhouse beside the river.

   He tenants the corner shop and lives in the rooms above it.

   Note

   This form is spelled exactly like the plural noun, so the sentence has to tell them apart. In "she tenants the apartment," a singular subject comes before it and the place follows as a direct object. The verb means holding something as a tenant or simply inhabiting it, and it takes the place directly, with no preposition: you tenant a house, not tenant in it.

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