▪ I. † tenent, n. Obs.
Also 7 tenant.
[a. L. tenent ‘they hold’, 3rd pers. pl. pres. indic. of tenēre to hold.]
= tenet.
Etymologically a tenet ought to be the opinion of one, what he holds, a tenent the opinion of a number, what they hold; but this distinction, if ever observed in using the words as English, was soon lost. Tenent was apparently more used in the 17th c. than tenet, but became obs. c 1725.
| 1551 Abp. Browne (of Armagh) Serm. in Phenix (1721) I. 134 They shall be your greatest enemies, speaking against the Tenents of Rome, and yet be set on by Rome. 1618 Hales Gold. Rem. ii. (1673) 59 Episcopius..required that it might be lawful for them to set down their own Tenents. 1621 Burton Anat. Mel. ii. ii. iii. (1651) 254 But..to grant this their tenent of the earths motion. 1643 Fuller Serm. 27 Mar. 18 Being so fickle in their Tenents. 1646 Sir T. Browne (title) Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed Truths. 1722 Wollaston Relig. Nat. v. 111 People of differing religions judge and condemn each other by their own tenents. |
▪ II. tenent, a. rare—1.
(ˈtɛnənt)
[ad. L. tenēnt-em holding, pr. pple. of tenēre to hold.]
Holding.
| 1861 T. West in Trans. Linn. Soc. (1862) XXIII. 408 That these [hair-like appendages] are the immediate agents in holding is now admitted by almost all; it will be convenient to term them ‘tenent hairs’, in allusion to their office. |
▪ III. tenent, -ry
obs. ff. tenon1, tenantry.