rent

plural rents

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

   I am asking £300 a week rent.

   2 more examples

   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.

   1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC

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

   1987, “Rent”, in Actually, performed by Pet Shop Boys

2. countableuncountableA similar payment for the use of a product, equipment or a service.
3. countableuncountableeconomicsA 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. countableuncountableAn object for which rent is charged or paid.
5. countableobsoleteuncountableIncome; revenue.

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

   1733–1737, Alexander Pope, [Imitations of Horace], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley [et al.]

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

present singular third person rents · participle present renting · participle past rented · past rented

1. transitiveTo take a lease of premises in exchange for rent.

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

2. informaltransitiveTo grant a lease in return for rent.

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

3. transitiveTo 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.

   1989 May, Priit J. Vesilind, “The Baltic: Arena of Power”, in National Geographic, volume 175, number 5, page 632

4. informalintransitiveTo be leased or let for rent.

   The house rents for five hundred dollars a month.

plural rents

1. A tear or rip in some surface.

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

   1876, [Mary Elizabeth Braddon], “The Cruel Crawling Foam”, in Joshua Haggard’s Daughter […], volume I, London: John Maxwell and Co. […], →OCLC, page 1

   2 more examples

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

   1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter X, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

   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.

   2020 September 23, Paul Bigland, “The tragic tale of the Tay Bridge disaster”, in Rail, page 81

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.

   2002, Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of rend

comparative more rent · superlative most rent

1. That has been torn or rent; ripped; torn.

   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.

   1898, George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

   1 more example

   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.

   1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “The Spirit of Life”, in She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 286

1. A surname.