rent

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Payment, usually of an amount fixed by contract, made by a tenant at specified intervals in return for the right to occupy or use the property of another.
2. n. A similar payment made for the use of a facility, equipment, or service provided by another.
3. n. The return derived from cultivated or improved land after deduction of all production costs.
4. n. The revenue yielded by a piece of land in excess of that yielded by the poorest or least favorably located land under equal market conditions. Also called economic rent.
5. v. To obtain occupancy or use of (another's property) in return for regular payments.
6. v. To grant temporary occupancy or use of (one's own property or a service) in return for regular payments: rents out TV sets.
7. v. To be for rent: The cottage rents for $1,200 a month.
8. idiom. for rent Available for use or service in return for payment.
9. v. A past tense and a past participle of rend.
10. n. An opening made by rending; a rip.
11. n. A breach of relations between persons or groups; a rift.
12. n. Slang A parent. Often used in the plural: had to stay home with the rents.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Preterit and past participle of rend.
2. An obsolete variant of rend.
3. n. An opening made by rending or tearing; a tear; a fissure; a break or breach; a crevice or crack.
4. n. A schism; a separation: as, a rent in the church.
5. n. Synonyms Tear, rupture, rift.
6. n. Income; revenue; receipts from any regular source.
7. n. In law: A compensation or return made periodically, or fixed with reference to a period of time, for the possession and use of property of any kind.
8. n. Technically, a definite compensation or return reserved by a lease, to be made periodically, or fixed with reference to a period of tenure, and payable in money, produce, or other chattels or labor, for the possession and use of land or buildings. Compensation of any other nature is not termed rent, because not enforceable in the same manner. The time of paying rents is either by the particular appointment of the parties in the deed, or by appointment of law, but the law does not control the express appointment of the parties, when such appointment will answer their intention. In England Michaelmas and Lady-day are the usual days appointed for payment of rents; and in Scotland Martinmas and Whitsunday.
9. n. The right to such compensation, particularly in respect of lands. Rents, at common law, are of three kinds: rent-service, rent-charge or fee-farm rent, and rent-seck. Rent-service, is when some corporal service is incident to it, as by fealty and a sum of money; rent-charge, or fee-farm rent, is when the owner of the rent has no future interest or reversion expectant in the land, but the rent is reserved in the deed by a clause of distress for rent in arrear (in other words, it is a charge on lands, etc., in the form of rent, in favor of one who is not the landlord); rent-seck is a like rent, but without any clause of distress. There are also rents of assize, certain established rents of freeholders and copyholders of manors, which cannot be varied: also called quit-rents. These, when payable in silver, are called white rents, in contradistinction to rents reserved in work or the baser metals, called black rents or black mail.
10. n. In political economics, that part of the produce of the soil which is left after deducting what is necessary to the support of the producers (including the wages of the laborers), the interest on the necessary capital, and a supply of seed for the next year; that part of the produce of a given piece of cultivated land which it yields over and above that yielded by the poorest land in cultivation under equal circumstances in respect to transportation, etc. The rent theoretically goes to the owner of the soil, whether cultivator or landlord. Also called economic rent.
11. n. An endowment; revenue.
12. n. See def. 2 .
13. n. Rent paid in advance.
14. To endow; secure an income to.
15. To grant the possession and enjoyment of for a consideration in the nature of rent; let on lease.
16. To take and hold for a consideration in the nature of rent: as, the tenant rents his farm for a year.
17. To hire; obtain the use or benefit of for a consideration, without lease or other formality, but for a more or less extended time: as, to rent a row-boat; to rent a piano. Synonyms and Lease, etc. See hire.
18. To be leased or let for rent: as, an estate rents for five thousand dollars a year.
19. An obsolete variant of rant.
20. A Middle English contracted form of rendeth, 3d person singular present indicative of rend.

Wiktionary

1. n. A payment made by a tenant at intervals in order to occupy a property.
2. n. A similar payment for the use of equipment or a service.
3. n. economics A profit from possession of a valuable right, as a restricted license to engage in a trade or business.
4. n. An object for which rent is charged or paid.
5. v. transitive To occupy premises in exchange for rent.
6. v. transitive To grant occupation in return for rent.
7. v. transitive To obtain or have temporary possession of an object (e.g. a movie) in exchange for money.
8. v. intransitive To be leased or let for rent.
9. n. A tear or rip in some surface.
10. n. A division or schism between two things.
11. v. Simple past tense and past participle of rend.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. R. & Obs. To rant.
2. imp. & p. p. of rend.
3. n. An opening made by rending; a break or breach made by force; a tear.
4. n. Figuratively, a schism; a rupture of harmony; a separation.
5. v. obsolete To tear. See rend.
6. n. obsolete Income; revenue. See catel.
7. n. obsolete Pay; reward; share; toll.
8. n. (Law) A certain periodical profit, whether in money, provisions, chattels, or labor, issuing out of lands and tenements in payment for the use; commonly, a certain pecuniary sum agreed upon between a tenant and his landlord, paid at fixed intervals by the lessee to the lessor, for the use of land or its appendages
9. n. That portion of the produce of the earth paid to the landlord for the use of the “original and indestructible powers of the soil;” the excess of the return from a given piece of cultivated land over that from land of equal area at the “margin of cultivation.” Called also economic rent, or Ricardian rent. Economic rent is due partly to differences of productivity, but chiefly to advantages of location; it is equivalent to ordinary or commercial rent less interest on improvements, and nearly equivalent to ground rent.
10. n. Loosely, a return or profit from a differential advantage for production, as in case of income or earnings due to rare natural gifts creating a natural monopoly.
11. v. To grant the possession and enjoyment of, for a rent; to lease.
12. v. To take and hold under an agreement to pay rent.
13. v. To be leased, or let for rent.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a payment or series of payments made by the lessee to an owner for use of some property, facility, equipment, or service
2. v. engage for service under a term of contract
3. n. the return derived from cultivated land in excess of that derived from the poorest land cultivated under similar conditions
4. v. hold under a lease or rental agreement; of goods and services
5. n. an opening made forcibly as by pulling apart
6. n. the act of rending or ripping or splitting something
7. v. let for money
8. v. grant use or occupation of under a term of contract