A tenement is a type of apartment building, usually old and crowded, where many families live in small, inexpensive units. It came to describe the cramped, poorly maintained buildings that housed working-class families in big cities during the 1800s and early 1900s.

In places like New York City, tenements were often five or six stories tall, with narrow, dark hallways and tiny apartments that might hold an entire family in just two or three rooms. Many tenements lacked proper ventilation, had only one bathroom for multiple families to share, and could be dangerously crowded. Families living in tenements often included recent immigrants working hard to build new lives in America, doing whatever jobs they could find in factories, on docks, or in shops.

Today, when people talk about tenement life, they're usually describing historical conditions. Reformers worked to improve housing laws, and many old tenements were eventually torn down or renovated. Some cities have preserved tenement buildings as museums, like the Tenement Museum in New York City, where you can see how families actually lived in those challenging conditions. The word reminds us how much housing standards have improved over the past century, though it can still describe any run-down apartment building where conditions aren't what they should be.