Monday, January 6, 2014

tenant, tenet

Tenant or tenant means someone who rents a house, land, or some other property--
The tenant in the apartment upstairs is noisy.
He was a tenant farmer; he paid the rent with some of his crops.

Tenet or tenet means a doctrine or principle; a basic part of a belief system--
Life after death is a tenet of the Christian religion.
Self-reliance was an important tenet of his personal philosophy.

Now that you know that, you can say--
"One basic tenet of his belief system was that a tenant should pay the rent promptly."

Note--"tenent" ( usually pronounced to rhyme with tenant ) means adapted for holding or clinging, as hairs on the legs of some insects or spiders--
The spider has tenent hairs on its legs; it's a very good climber.

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