1. In architecture, an individually owned unit of real estate, especially an apartment or townhouse, in a building or on land that is owned in common by the owners of the units: Jim told his friend that he intended to buy a condominium before he retired because he was tired of renting an apartment.
2. A building or complex containing apartments or townhouses: The condominium on the corner has a great view of the ravine and river that is just across the street.
3. In politics, a country governed by two or more different countries with joint responsibilities: The countries on both sides of the river agreed to a condominium so that neither one would have sole ownership of the river and the commerce that used it.
4. Etymology: from Modern Latin, "joint sovereignty", apparently coined in German about 1700 from com-, "together" + dominum, "right of ownership".

The sense of "privately owned apartment" came into existence in American English, about 1962, as a special use of the legal term.

© ALL rights are reserved.

Go to this Word A Day Revisited Index
so you can see more of Mickey Bach's cartoons.