VocabularyBasePractice words

Meaning & use

tenant farmer

noun·Advanced

Last updated

UK/ˌtenənt ˈfɑːmə/
US/ˌtɛnənt ˈfɑːrmɚ/

Meanings

  1. nouncountable

    A person who farms land that belongs to someone else and pays the owner for using it.

    Grammar: Often followed by on or of a landowner's estate: a tenant farmer on the estate.

    Patterns

    • a tenant farmer on something
    • a tenant farmer of someone

    Her grandfather was a tenant farmer who rented forty acres from the local landowner.

    The tenant farmers on the estate paid their rent each autumn.

    Many tenant farmers lost their homes when the landlord sold the land.

  2. nouncountablespecialist

    In history, a farmer who gave part of the harvest to the landowner as payment for the land.

    Grammar: Used when speaking of past farming systems, especially in the American South and in Ireland.

    Patterns

    • tenant farmers in something

    After the war, many tenant farmers in the South paid rent with part of their crop.

    Irish tenant farmers campaigned for fair rents in the nineteenth century.

    Tenant farmers often had no say over how the land was used.

Word forms

pluraltenant farmers

Common combinations

a tenant farmer on an estate
He worked as a tenant farmer on a large estate.
become a tenant farmer
After losing his own land, he became a tenant farmer.
tenant farmer's rent
The tenant farmer's rent rose every year.
small tenant farmer
Small tenant farmers struggled after the poor harvest.
tenant farmer's lease
The tenant farmer's lease ran for ten years.

Synonyms and how they differ

sharecropper
A sharecropper pays with a share of the crop, while a tenant farmer more often pays rent in money.
leaseholder
Leaseholder is a legal term for anyone renting property on a lease, not only farmers.
crofter
A crofter, mainly in Scotland, rents a small farm called a croft, so the word is narrower and regional.
renter
Renter is a general word for anyone who rents, with no link to farming.

Opposites

landownerlandlord

Word family

tenant noun
a person who rents land or a building from an owner
tenancy noun
the right to use land or property by renting it
tenure noun
the way land is held, or the time someone holds a position
farmer noun
a person who grows crops or raises animals

Commonly confused: tenant farmer or sharecropper?

tenant farmer vs sharecropper

A sharecropper gives the owner a fixed part of the crop in place of money. A tenant farmer usually pays a set rent.

Practice

A farmer who rents land from an estate and pays the owner every season is called a ______.

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “tenant farmer”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

Your sentence stays on this page and is not sent anywhere.

Explore more words