untenanted en · ADJ
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *né Proto-Indo-European *n̥- Proto-Germanic *un- Proto-West Germanic *un- Old English un- Middle English un- English un- English tenanted English untenanted From un- + tenanted.
Meanings
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(also, figuratively, not-comparable) Not leased to or occupied by a tenant; unoccupied.
Many years elapsed before the success of Kemp Town as a residential district was assured; the foundations of the estate were laid in 1823, but some houses remained untenanted until the 1850s.
1952 December, R. C. Riley, “By Rail to Kemp Town”, in Railway Magazine, page 832:[…] a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.
1842 May, Edgar Allan Poe, “The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy”, in Graham’s Magazine, volume 20, number 5, page 259:As we have seen some quadrupedes formed to crop the surface of the fields, and others to live upon the tops of trees, so the Mole is formed to live wholly under the earth, as if Nature meant that no place should be left wholly untenanted.
1791, Oliver Goldsmith, chapter II, in An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature. […], new edition, volume IV, London: […] F[rancis] Wingrave, successor to Mr. [John] Nourse, […], →OCLC, page 90:The house looked as though it had been long untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up.
1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable and Company, […], →OCLC:Peter Holmes left the club and drove down to the hardware store in Elizabeth Street where he had bought the motor mower. It was untenanted and empty of people, but somebody had broken in a door and it had been partially looted in that anyone who wanted anything had just walked in to take it.
1957, Neville Shute, chapter 9, in On the Beach, New York: William Morrow & Co:At five o'clock there will be few people in the broad pillared saloon, and usually the little round tables that obstruct the sidewalk before its doors are untenanted.
1905, Edgar Wallace, “Prologue: Thery’s Trade”, in The Four Just Men, London: The Tallis Press […], →OCLC, page 7:
Synonyms
uninhabited · untenanted · beingless · inhabited · unpeopled · unhabited · inhabitantless · disinhabited · vacant · unoccupied · unpopulated · vacant · solitary · uninhabited · desert · desolate · wasteful · howling · deserted · lifeless · tenantless · peopleless