Rent

Pronunciation

• enPR: rÄ•nt, IPA: /rÉ›nt/
• Rhymes: -É›nt

Old French rente, from Vulgar Latin rendere ("to render").

Full definition of rent

Noun

1. A payment made by a tenant at intervals in order to occupy a property.
• 1918, W. B. Maxwell, The Mirror and the Lamp Chapter 17, This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.
2. A similar payment for the use of equipment or a service.
3. (economics) A profit from possession of a valuable right, as a restricted license to engage in a trade or business.
   A New York city taxicab license earns more than $10,000 a year in rent.
4. An object for which rent is charged or paid.
5. (obsolete) income; revenue
• GowerBacchus a waster was and all his rent
  In wine and bordel he dispent.
• Alexander PopeSo bought an annual rent or two,
  And liv'd, just as you see I do.

Derived terms

• rental
• renting
• rent strike

Verb

1. (transitive) To occupy premises in exchange for rent.
2. (transitive) To grant occupation in return for rent.
3. (transitive) To obtain or have temporary possession of an object (e.g. a movie) in exchange for money.
4. (intransitive) To be leased or let for rent.The house rents for five hundred dollars a month.

Middle English renten ("to tear"). Variant form of renden.

Noun

1. A tear or rip in some surface.
• 1913, D. H. Lawrence, ,The brown paint on the door was so old that the naked wood showed between the rents.
2. A division or schism.

Verb

1. rent

   (past of rend)

Anagrams

• tern
• tren