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rent

noun · verb · adjective

Simple meaning

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

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

rehnt
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɹɛnt

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

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

  2. A payment or series of payments made by the lessee to an owner for use of some property, facility, equipment, or service

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

  4. A tear or rip in some surface.

  5. An object for which rent is charged or paid.

  6. A division or schism.

verb

  1. transitive

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

  2. Let for money

    “We rented our apartment to friends while we were abroad.”

  3. transitive

    To take a lease of premises in exchange for rent.

  4. intransitiveinformal

    To be leased or let for rent.

  5. transitiveinformal

    To grant a lease in return for rent.

adjective

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

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

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More ways to use rent

  • “We rented our apartment to friends while we were abroad.”verb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Tear

ground rent

Return

land rent

Other combinations

rent controlpay rentannual rentmedian rent

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • rentingnounInflected form

    The act of paying for the use of something (as an apartment or house or car).

  • renternounInflected form

    Someone who pays rent to use land or a building or a car that is owned by someone else.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • rentalnounDerived noun

    Property that is leased or rented out or let.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • rent-seekingnounCompound term

    The theory that a person or firm seeks to make money by manipulating the economic environment rather than by making a profit through production or trade.

  • rent collectornounCompound term

    A person who goes from house to house collecting rents for the owner.

  • rent-freeadverbCompound term

    Without paying rent.

  • rent-a-carnounCompound term

    A rented car.

  • rent outverbCompound term

    Grant the services of or the temporary use of, for a fee.

  • rent-rebatenounCompound term

    A rebate on rent given by a local government authority.

Related words

Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.

  • rental collectionnounRelated term

    A collection of books that can be rented by readers in return for a small daily fee.

Related Words

Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

noun

Sense: payment made by a tenant at intervals in order to lease a property

let

verb

Sense: to obtain

hireletRegionallease

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.