Tenant

Tenant (tenens from tenere, "to hold"). This word contains a much more extensive idea in the language of the law than it does in its popular sense, where it is uses in contradistinction to the term "landlord," and always seems to imply that the land or property is not the tenant's own, but belongs to some other person of whom he immediately owns it; but in the language of the law every possessor of landed property is called a tenant with reference to such property, and this whether such landed property is absolutely his own, or whether he merely holds it under a lease for a certain term of years. The reason of this is that all the real property of this kingdom is by the policy of our laws supposed to be granted by, dependent upon, and holden of, some superior lord in cons1deration of some service to be rendered to the lord by the tenant or possessor of this property, tenants are distinguished according to the nature of the estate they hold by appropriate and corresponding terms. Thus a person who holds an estate in fee simple is called a tenant in fee simple; if the estate be an estate tail, he is ca1led a tenant in tail; if for years, a tenant for years; and so on. The word "tenant," therefore, when applied to a person always presupposes such person to be the holder or possessor of an estate of some kind but of what estate cannot be determined without the additional adjuncts referred to.