Also 7–8 app-; 7 appartiment. [a. Fr. appartement, ad. med.L. appartīmentum, f. appartīre to apportion, f. L. ad to + partī-re to divide, share.]
1. A portion of a house or building, consisting of a suite or set of rooms, allotted to the use of a particular person or party. arch.
1641. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), I. 14. Our new lodgings … a very handsome apartment just over against the Hall-court.
1660. Blount, Boscobel, I. (1680), 65. Mr. George Giffard who lived in an appartiment of the house.
1709. Lond. Gaz., mmmmcccxcv/2. The Great Hall of his Majesty’s Apartment.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v., A compleat Apartment must consist of a hall, a chamber, an antechamber, a closet, and a cabinet or wardrobe.
a. 1794. Gibbon, Autobiogr., 27. My apartment consisted of three elegant and well-furnished rooms.
1883. Standard, 10 May, 8/4. To be let, furnished, by the year, a large and handsome Apartment, the residence of an English family leaving Genoa.
2. A single room of a house; the original sense being expressed by the plur. apartments.
1715. in Lond. Gaz., mmmmmcccxxxviii/1. Apartments are fitting up in the … College … for Sig. Aldobrandi.
1815. Scott, Guy M., xvi. I stole softly to the window of my apartment.
1824. Miss Mitford, Our Village, Ser. I. (1863), 8. The curate’s lodgings—apartments his landlady would call them.
1879. Miss Braddon, Vixen, III. 186. Her morning-room was an airy apartment on the first floor.
† 3. Separate, proper, or special place of abode; quarters; place appropriated to any purpose. Obs.
1681. Chetham, Angler’s Vade-m., xli. § 6. Fish will … hide themselves in their private apartments.
1695. Woodward, Nat. Hist. Earth, IV. (1723), 205. No other place or Apartment in the Globe [etc.].
1719. De Foe, Crusoe, 54. When I came down from my Appartment in the Tree.
† 4. A separate division of any enclosure; a compartment. Obs.
1692. Luttrell, Brief Rel., II. (1857), 397. In case a bullet peirce thro’ … and the water come in, it shall come into but one apartment.
1703. Moxon, Mech. Exerc., 127. What Apartments, or Partitions, to make on your Ground-plot.
1727. Pope, etc., Art Sinking, 115. Every drawer shall be sub-divided into cells … The apartment for peace or war … may in a very few days be filled with several arguments perfectly new.
