apartment

[Ger. apartement, from Fr. appartement, from à part = aside, apart, separately; Sp. a part i a men to; Port. a part a men to = separation, division; apartar = to part, to separate; Ital. appartemento.] [PART.] *L. Originally : As its etymology, a-part ment, imports, a partitioning out; a separation of a part of a house required for the accommodation of a family or an individual. (Though this sense is obsolete in English, it is still retained in many foreign languages.) IL Now : 1. A suite of rooms separated from the rest for the same special purpose. "The word apartment meaning, in effect, a compartment of a house, already includes, in its proper sense, a suite of rooms; and it is a mere vulgar error, arising out of the ambitious usage of lodging-house keepers, to talk of one family or one establishment occupying apartments , in the plural. The queen's apartment at St. James's or at Versailles, not the queen's apartments, is the correct expre ion,"- De Quincey's Works (ed. 1863), vol. ii., Note , p. 238. 2. A single room. "The walls of the principal apartments were finely sculptured with fruit, foliage, and armorial bearings, and were hung with embroidered satin."- Macaulay : Hist. Eng ., ch. iii.