rent

noun

1. 1

   A payment made by a tenant at intervals in order to lease a property.

   I am asking £300 a week rent.

   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.

   We never ever argue, we never calculate / The currency we've spent / I love you, you pay my rent

2. 2

   A similar payment for the use of a product, equipment or a service.

3. 3

   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. 4

   An object for which rent is charged or paid.

5. 5

   obsoleteIncome; revenue.

   So bought an annual rent or two, / And liv'd, just as you see I do.

6. 6

   An amount of virtual currency paid by a player to preserve their character, inventory, etc. between gameplay sessions in a multi-user dungeon.

verb

1. 1

   To take a lease of premises in exchange for rent.

   I rented a house from my friend's parents for a year.

2. 2

   informalTo grant a lease in return for rent.

   We rented our house to our son's friend for a year.

3. 3

   To obtain or have temporary possession of an object (e.g. a movie) in exchange for money.

   In Pärnu the beach is closed, but the Neptun cooperative still runs its beachfront shop, renting surfboards and beach chairs.

4. 4

   informalTo be leased or let for rent.

   The house rents for five hundred dollars a month.

noun

1. 1

   A tear or rip in some surface.

   [O]ne streak of copper-coloured light made a narrow rent between sea and sky.

   The brown paint on the door was so old that the naked wood showed between the rents.

   The oscillations were getting so severe that painters on the bridge learned to tie down their tins before a train passed. They found holes and rents in the iron but never reported them as they were never asked, and it wasn't their job. These were deferential times, and few wanted to talk out of turn.

2. 2

   A division or schism.

   [T]he White House was considering sending Vice President Humphrey to Cairo to patch up the many rents in U.S.—Egyptian relations.

verb

1. 1

   Also a form of rendsimple past and past participle of rend

adjective

1. 1

   That has been torn or rent; ripped; torn.

   Indeed, we could clearly make out the arch and stony banks of this second cave, and, from their rent and jagged appearance, discovered that, like the first long passage down which we had passed through the cliff before we reached the quivering spur, it had to all appearance been torn in the bowels of the rock by the terrific force of some explosive gas.

   Cleopatra is rent by a struggle between her newly-acquired dignity as a queen, and a strong impulse to put out her tongue at him.

Forms

plural

rents

comparative

more rent

superlative

most rent

past tense

rented

past participle

rented

present participle

renting

third person singular

rents