Wednesday, January 15, 2014

tenant/tenet: Common Errors in English Usage Entry for Wednesday, January 15, 2014

tenant/tenet
These two words come from the same Latin root, tenere, meaning “to hold,” but they have very different meanings. “Tenet” is the rarer of the two, meaning a belief that a person holds: “Avoiding pork is a tenet of the Muslim faith.” In contrast, the person leasing an apartment from you is your tenant. (She holds the lease.)

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