quote:

ten⋅ant
–noun
1. a person or group that rents and occupies land, a house, an office, or the like, from another for a period of time; lessee.
2. Law. a person who holds or possesses for a time lands, tenements, or personalty of another, usually for rent.
3. an occupant or inhabitant of any place.
–verb (used with object)
4. to hold or occupy as a tenant; dwell in; inhabit.

–verb (used without object)
5. to dwell or live (usually fol. by in).

Origin:
1250–1300; ME tena(u)nt < AF; MF tenant, n. use of prp. of tenir to hold ≪ L tenēre. See -ant

quote:

tenant, v. fig.
To occupy, fill, take up (a space, etc.).

1670 J. NEWBURGH Observ. 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 R. BROUGHTON Nancy II. 183 Alternate clouds and sunshine tenant the sky.

Hence tenanted ppl. a., held by a tenant or tenants, occupied; tenanting vbl. n. and ppl. a. So tenanter, one who tenants, an occupant.


Hence tenanted ppl. a., held by a tenant or tenants, occupied; tenanting vbl. n. and ppl. a. So [b[tenanter[/b], 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 Apr. 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.

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1830 LYELL Princ. Geol. (1872) I. I. xiv. 300 Birds, quadrupeds, and reptiles, which tenanted the fertile region.

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Principles of geology: being an attempt to explain the former changes of the earth's surface, by reference to causes now in operation
Volume 2; Volume 1832
By Charles Lyell, Gérard Paul Deshayes

p. 103
In this manner islands become tenanted by species of birds inhabiting the nearest main land.

p. 147
The felling of dense and lofty forests which covered, even within the records of history, a considerable space on the globe, now tenanted by civilized man, must usually have lessened the amount of vegetable food throughout the space where these woods grew.

p.186
Thus, when timber is floated into the sea, it is often drifted to vast distances and subsides in spots where there might have been no deposit, at that time and place, if the earth had not been tenanted by living beings,

p.204
To the geologist, the Gangetie Islands, and their migratory colonies, may present an epitome of the globe as tenanted by man.

p.299
If a large pond be made, in almost any soil, and filled with rain water, it may usually become tenanted by testacea, for carbonate of lime is almost universally diffused in small quantities.

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The Voyage of the Beagle
by Charles Darwin

p.351
We continued to ride over desert plains, tenanted by large herds of guanaco

p.398
I never dreamed that islands, about 50 or 60 miles apart, and most of them in sight of each other, formed of precisely the same rocks, placed under a quite similar climate, rising to nearly equal height, would have been differently tenanted; but we shall soon see that this is the case.

p. 461
But there is one charming bird: it is a small, snow-white tern, which smoothly hovers at the distance of a few feet above one's head, its large black eye scanning, with quiet curiosity, your expression. Little imagination is required to fancy that so light and delicate a body must be tenanted by some wandering fairy spirit.