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apartment

US //əˈpɑɹtmənt// UK //ɐpˈɑːtmənt// apart·ment
  1. 1 a home (n.)
    A1 Beginner American English

    a set of rooms where you live that is part of a larger building.

    a self-contained housing unit that occupies only part of a building. Standard in American English; 'flat' is the preferred term in British English.

    Example

    They moved into a modern apartment on the fourth floor of the building.

    Example

    The developer converted the historic warehouse into luxury apartments, retaining the original brickwork and high ceilings to attract young professionals.

    Usage

    Usually countable; often used with 'in' or 'at'.

    Pitfall
    I live in a small apartment of three rooms.
    I live in a small three-room apartment.

    In English, we usually put the number of rooms before the word 'apartment' as an adjective, rather than using 'of'.

  2. 2 computing/threading (n.)
    C1 Advanced Technical Computing

    a private space in a computer program that keeps different tasks separate so they do not crash.

    a logical container within a process for objects sharing the same thread access requirements. Used to manage concurrency and prevent data corruption.

    Example

    The program uses a single-threaded apartment to handle the user interface.

    Example

    When developing COM components, the programmer must decide whether the object will reside in a single-threaded or multi-threaded apartment to ensure thread safety.

    Usage

    Commonly used in the context of Component Object Model (COM) programming.

Origin

From French appartement, from Italian appartamento, from Spanish apartamiento (“separation, seclusion”). See apart.

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