Etymology

Noun

1. A complete domicile occupying only part of a building.

   apartment dwellers

2. A suite of rooms within a domicile, designated for a specific person or persons and including a bedroom.
   • 1726, Jonathan Swift, "A Voyage to Lilliput", chapter IV, in Gulliver's Travels,

     By this contrivance I got into the inmost court; and, lying down upon my side, I applied my face to the windows of the middle stories, which were left open on purpose, and discovered the most splendid apartments that can be imagined. There I saw the empress and the young princes in their several lodgings, with their chief attendants about them.

3. A division of an enclosure that is separate from others; a compartment
   • 1883 April 23, Slawson v. Grand Street R. Co., 107 U.S. 649, 2 S.Ct. 663, 664,

     The specification described the ordinary fare-box used in street cars and omnibuses, consisting of two apartments, the one directly above the other.... [T]he passenger deposited his fare in an aperture in the top of the upper apartment. It fell upon and was arrested by a movable platform.... This platform turned on an axis acted on by a lever. When turned, the fare fell into the lower apartment, which was a receptacle for holding the fares accumulated....