This word confusion apartment vs condo vs flat vs townhouse has always been in the back of my mind — along with all the other dust-covered thoughts . . . oh well . . .
I knew an apartment and a flat were the same thing, a unit that’s rented to someone, and that a condo is just like an apartment but owned by its tenant, but . . .
If you want to get “technical”, an apartment is a set of rooms that a person rents; it can span more than one floor.
A condo, a.k.a. comdominium, is a set of rooms that a person owns, and it can span more than one floor.
A flat is a British term for apartment, but “technically” can only span one floor.
A townhouse is a set of rooms with multiple floors and shares its sidewalls with a building on either side. No side yard. It usually has a backyard.
And yes, a person can rent a condo or townhouse from its owner, and a townhouse may be split into apartments on its various floors.
Exploring Later . . .
You may want to explore co-op in “Co-op vs Coop vs Coup vs Coupe, Coupé“.
Word Confusions . . .
. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.
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| Apartment | Condo | Flat | Townhouse |
|---|---|---|---|
 — |
 — |
||
| Part of Grammar: | |||
| Noun
Plural: apartments |
Morpheme: condominium
Noun Plural: condos, condominiums NOTE: This post only notes the definition for a place in which one lives. |
Noun
Plural: flats |
Noun
Plural: townhouses A.k.a. town house, town houses |
[North American English] A suite of rooms that could be over one floor, forming one residence, typically in a building containing a number of these
|
[North American English] A building or complex of buildings containing a number of individually owned apartments or houses
|
[British] A set of rooms that forms a residence within one floor | A tall, narrow, traditional row house, generally having three or more floors
[Government, Politics, Diplomacy; now chiefly Scottish] Another name for town hall |
| Examples: | |||
| I just moved into my new apartment.
Have you seen that new apartment building? We rented an apartment by the beach for a week. See that the Imperial apartments are prepared. |
Those condos have been there for ages.
He bought a condo in that complex over on Third Avenue. The condo board is meeting tonight. The condo owners have been assessed $1,000 for snow removal this winter. |
She’s moving into her flat this weekend.
That building has more than 500 flats. We’re going to Marina’s flat in the City for dinner. When I’m in the city, I prefer a flat over a townhouse. |
No, we can’t live in a townhouse. Not with all those flights of stairs.
As the Industrial Revolution progressed, townhouses became a more practical form of architecture. We have the townhouse in New York and a country home in Vermont. “It was filmed in the real $50,000-a-month Tribeca townhouse that Strauss-Kahn and his wife, Anne Sinclair, rented back in 2011” (McNicoll). “When Kana′tĭ reached the settlement of the Wolf people, they were holding a council in the townhouse” (Mooney). |
| Derivatives: | |||
| Adjective: apartmental | |||
| History of the Word: | |||
| Mid-17th century, denoting a private suite of rooms is from the French appartement, from the Italian appartamento, from appartare meaning to separate, from a parte meaning apart. | Dates from the 1960s and evolved from the early 18th century from the modern Latin, from con- (together with) + dominium (right of ownership), which is from the Middle English via the Old French from the medieval Latin dominio(n-), which is from the Latin dominium, from dominus meaning lord, master. | Derived from the Scottish flet, which implies a storey of a house, and from the Old English flett, meaning dwelling, hall. | First recorded in 1520–30. |
C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!
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Resources for Apartment vs Condo vs Flat vs Townhouse
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Apple Dictionary.com
Dictionary.com: townhouse
The Free Dictionary: townhouse
Mooney, James. Myths of the Cherokee: Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. Project Gutenberg, 2014. <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/45634/45634-h/45634-h.htm>. Ebook.
McNicoll, Tracy. “We Watch the DSK Sex Romp So You Don’t Have To.” The Daily Beast. 20 May 2014. Last updated 12 July 2017. Accessed 6 Aug 2024. <https://www.thedailybeast.com/we-watch-the-dsk-sex-romp-so-you-dont-have-to?source=dictionary>.
Pinterest Photo Credits
Building Façade is in the public domain, via PxHere.
