[f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. To hold as tenant, to be the tenant of (land, a house, etc.); esp. to occupy, inhabit.
1634. Habington, Castara (Arb.), 125. To the cold humble hermitage Not tenanted but by discoloured age.
1667. Primatt, City & C. Build., 34. Houses … without Tenants, decay sooner than those which are Tenanted.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 107, ¶ 5. The greatest Part of Sir Roger’s Estate is tenanted by Persons who have served himself or his Ancestors.
1795. Southey, Vis. Maid of Orleans, I. 96. Damsel, look here! survey this house of death; O soon to tenant it.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol. (1872), I. I. xiv. 300. Birds, quadrupeds, and reptiles, which tenanted the fertile region.
1855. Tennyson, Brook, 222. We bought the farm we tenanted before.
b. fig. To occupy, fill, take up (a space, etc.).
1670. J. Newburgh, Obser. Cider, in Evelyn, Pomona, 54. A Barrel newly tenanted by small Beer.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), VI. x. A pair of boundless slippers that have been tenanted by a thousand feet.
1873. Miss Broughton, Nancy, II. 183. Alternate clouds and sunshine tenant the sky.
2. intr. To reside, dwell, live in. rare.
1650. Weldon, Crt. Jas. I., 133. Surely never so many brave parts, and so base and abject a spirit tenanted together in any one earthen Cottage.
1851. S. Warren, Lily & Bee, II. 190. A sparrow … In yonder tree he tenanteth alone.
1875. Mrs. E. W. Crooks, Life Rev. A. Crooks, 306. Impulsions adverse to spiritual life and growth, in ambush, still tenant the heart, until the last one is brought to view and cast out.
† 3. trans. To let out to a tenant or tenants. rare.
1721. Strype, Eccl. Mem., I. xvi. 123. Three acres more he converted into a highway…; and the rest he tenanted out.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., V. iii. (1869), II. 536. The lands in America and the West Indies, indeed, are in general not tenanted nor leased out to farmers.
Hence Tenanted ppl. a., held by a tenant or tenants, occupied; Tenanting vbl. sb. and ppl. a. So Tenanter, one who tenants, an occupant.
1798. J. Hucks, Poems, 43. The little family of hope, The young-ey’d tenanters of happiness.
1886. Pall Mall G., 22 April, 8/2. The immediate landlord of any tenanted estate.
1903. Morley, Gladstone, I. ii. 38. An eager pilgrimage to the newly tenanted grave of his hero.
