rentn.¹

Brit.

/rɛnt/, U.S.

/rɛnt/

Forms: Middle English rennt, Middle English renþe, Middle English renth, Middle English–1500s rentt, Middle English–1500s rentte, Middle English–1600s rente, Middle English– rent, 1900s– rint (Irish English (northern)); Scottish pre-1700 rente, pre-1700 rint, pre-1700 wrent, pre-1700 1700s– rent.

Origin: A borrowing from French. Etymons: French rent, rente.

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman rent, rennt (also rend ), Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French, French rente (also rende ) return payment, restitution (early 12th cent. in Anglo-Norman), tax, toll, tribute, or similar charge to be regularly paid for the use of movable or immovable goods (c1119 in Anglo-Norman), regular revenue from certain goods (c1155), tribute, exaction (c1170 or earlier in Anglo-Norman), rented house, property producing rent (c1300 or earlier in Anglo-Norman), interest (a1392) < post-classical Latin rendita (12th cent.; compare earlier renda (9th cent.); corresponding to classical Latin reddita ), feminine of past participle of rendere (see render v.). Compare post-classical Latin renta (from 12th cent. in British sources; from 13th cent. in continental sources), Old Occitan renda, Catalan renda (1259), Spanish renta (a1215; earlier as renda (1131)), Portuguese renda (1162), Italian rendita (a1348). Compare also Old Frisian rente, Middle Dutch rente (Dutch rente), Middle Low German rente, Middle High German rente, rent (German Rente), Old Icelandic renta, Old Swedish ränta (Swedish ränta), Old Danish rente (Danish rente).

†1.

a. Chiefly in plural. A source or item of revenue or income; a separate piece of property, esp. land, yielding a certain return to the owner. Obsolete.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > possession > possessions > [noun] > real or immovable property > land > land yielding income

rent?a1160

livelihood1438

livinga1450

stock1552

livelihead1590

investment property1832

?a1160 Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Laud) (Peterborough contin.) anno 1137 Martin abbot..wrohte on þe circe & sette þarto landes & rentes.

?c1225 (?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Cleo. C.vi) (1972) 129 Purses. baggen & packes beoð..alle eorðliche weolen & worldliche rentes [a1250 Nero renten].

c1325 (c1300) Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 7615 (MED) Vnneþe was þer eni hous in al normandie..Þat king willam ne feffede..Mid londes oþer mid rentes þat hii abbeþ here an honde.

c1390 Swete Ihesu Now (Vernon) l. 334 in C. Horstmann Yorkshire Writers (1896) II. 20 Ihesu, Beute ne aske I þe nouȝt..Londes ne Rentes, deore bouȝt, But hertly loue and clene þouȝt.

c1405 (c1375) G. Chaucer Monk's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 213 God to thy fader lente Glorie and honour, regne, tresor, rente.

a1450 (c1410) H. Lovelich Hist. Holy Grail xlvi. 13 (MED) Vppon him wolde he werren ful pleyn And distroyen bothe Rente And lond.

1481 W. Caxton tr. Myrrour of Worlde i. v Their Rentes, their tresours or other thinge wherin they delyte them.

a1500 (a1400) Sir Cleges (Adv.) (1930) 93 (MED) He thowȝt..howe he hade his maners sold And his renttis wyde.

1523 Ld. Berners tr. J. Froissart Cronycles I. ccclxxix. 635 This Philip..was abydynge in his mothers house, and lyued honestely on theyr rentes.

1578 in D. Masson Reg. Privy Council Scotl. (1880) 1st Ser. III. 48 Of unproffitabill alienationis..of thair rentis and patrimony in thair les ages.

1611 T. Coryate Crudities sig. Mm3 A goodly Bishoprick..which he endowed with most ample rents and reuenewes.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Henry V (1623) iv. i. 240 What are thy Rents? what are thy Commings in?

1653 D. Dickson Brief Explic. First 50 Psalms xlix. 336 Those who are not only rich, but also honourable, and Lords of great rents, fair lands, houses and heritages.

1724 T. Townsend tr. A. de Solis Hist. Conquest Mexico iv. xv. 218 His Majesty bestow'd many Favours upon Don Pedro, giving him an Estate and considerable Rents in New Spain.

b. Revenue, income. Also figurative. Obsolete.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > [noun]

renta1225

winningsc1380

profita1382

profity1432

revenue1433

fruitc1450

luck?a1475

improvement1478

apports1481

penny-rent1502

importance1505

filthy lucre1526

rentally1534

entrataa1538

a quick return1583

incoming1596

entratec1599

advenue1600

coming in1600

income1601

intrade1604

intrado1609

ingate1621

audit1625

increment1631

indraught1633

velvet1901

a1225 (c1200) Vices & Virtues (1888) 77 Ða riche menn ðe laneð here eihte uppe chierches and uppe ða chirch-landes..oðe uppe oðre þinges þe rentes ȝiueð.

c1225 (?c1200) St. Juliana (Bodl.) 28 (MED) Maximien luuede an eleusium..Akennet of heh cun & swiðe riche of rente.

c1275 (?a1216) Owl & Nightingale (Calig.) l. 1767 Hwi nulleþ hi nimen heom to rede..For teche heom of his wisdome An ȝiue him rente auale stude.

1340 Ayenbite (1866) 37 (MED) Þe ontrewe reuen, prouos, and bedeles..wyþdraȝeþ þe rentes of hire lhordes.

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 27248 (MED) To þe preist at frain it feres O symony, of couaites..Or o wasting of his rent.

1483 W. Caxton tr. Caton G iv Thou oughtest..to holde thyn estate after thy rente and reuenue.

a1500 Liber Pluscardensis (Marchm.) (1877) I. 388 Scho has assythit Deed of all his rentis.

a1513 W. Dunbar Poems (1998) I. 126 Rewthe, the frute of nobilnes, Off womanheid the tresour and the rent.

1535 W. Stewart tr. H. Boece Bk. Cron. Scotl. (1858) 28122 Greit reward richt oft to thame he gaif..Of gold and siluer, and of vther rent.

1549 R. Crowley Voyce Laste Trumpet sig. Avii Thou..sekest euer for to fynde. Wayes to encrease thyne yerely rent.

1635 E. Pagitt Christianographie (1636) iii. 43 These Novell Devices brought in a new Rent and great profit to the Clergy.

1687 A. Lovell tr. J. de Thévenot Trav. into Levant i. 166 Palm-Trees, which yield some rent to the Monks.

1711 J. Swift Argument abolishing Christianity in Misc. Prose & Verse 162 To allow each of them such a Rent, as..would make them Easy.

1783 E. Burke Speech Fox's E. India Bill in Wks. (1815) IV. 86 Territories yielding a rent of one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year.

c. Recompense, reward; a privilege accorded to a person. Obsolete. rare.

ΘΚΠ

the world > action or operation > behaviour > reciprocal treatment or return of an action > reward or a reward > [noun]

shipec1000

rightOE

yielda1200

hire?c1225

foryieldinga1300

tithinga1300

rentc1300

lowera1325

guerdon?a1366

recompensationa1382

retributionc1384

reward?1387

reguerdona1393

rewardon?a1400

mercimonyc1400

pensionc1400

remunerationc1400

recompensec1425

wardonc1480

salary1484

premiationa1513

requital1556

repayment1561

requite1561

renumeration1572

remisea1578

lieu1592

reguerdonment1599

gratulation1611

muneration1611

requit1786

c1300 (?c1225) King Horn (Cambr.) (1901) 914 (MED) Sire king, ȝef me mi rente.

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 19593 (MED) I[t] fell saint petre als for rent To call men vnto amendment.

J. Metham Amoryus & Cleopes (1916) 1560 (MED) Orphe..hys wyf receyuyd ayen for the rent Off hys musycal melody.

d. The produce of a crop, fruit. Obsolete. rare.

ΚΠ

?c1335 (a1300) Land of Cokaygne 86 in W. Heuser Kildare-Gedichte (1904) 147 Þer beþ iiii. willis in þe abbei: Of triacle and halwei, Of baum and ek piement, Euer ernend to riȝt rent.

a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 370) (1850) 4 Kings viii. 6 Restore to hyre alle thingis that ben hyres, and alle the rentes [a1425 L.V. fruytis; L. reditus] of feeldis.

a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1963) 1 Kings viii. 15 Ȝoure cornys & þe rentis of vynes he schal tiþen.

e. Scottish. Profit, value. Obsolete. rare.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > profit > [noun]

earningeOE

issuea1325

lucrec1380

lucre of gainc1386

return1419

feracityc1420

revenue1427

vantagec1430

afframing1440

revenue1440

availc1449

proventc1451

provenuec1487

rent1513

fardel1523

chevisance1535

gains1546

commodity1577

proceed1578

increasal1601

benefit1606

endowment1615

gaininga1631

superlucration1683

profit1697

bunce1706

making1837

bunt1851

plunder1851

yield1877

recovery1931

earner1970

1513 G. Douglas in tr. Virgil Æneid i. Prol. 82 Set this my werk full feble be of rent.

†a. A tax, toll, tribute, or similar charge levied by or paid to a person. to hold one's rent: to succeed in paying a charge at a specified time. Also figurative. Obsolete.See also black rent n. at black adj. and n. Compounds 1e(a).

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > impost, due, or tax > tribute > [noun]

gavelc725

trewagec1275

rentc1300

tribute1340

port1350

scat1502

tribute-money1526

mise1535

vectigal1535

livery1577

mise-money1617

c1300 St. Thomas Becket (Laud) 390 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary (1887) 117 He axede atþe laste Eche ȝere ane certeyne rente þoruȝ al engelond wel faste.

c1325 (c1300) Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 5778 (MED) Þre ȝer he huld is rente, ac þe verþe was bihinde.

c1400 (?a1300) Kyng Alisaunder (Laud) (1952) 4142 (MED) He is comen to parlement, Forto ȝelde þee þi rent.

c1405 (c1390) G. Chaucer Man of Law's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 1044 Deeth..taketh of heigh and logh his rente.

a1450 (a1400) Ten Commandments (Bodl.) in T. Arnold Sel. Eng. Wks. J. Wyclif (1871) III. 87 Þe Cherche, þat sellen men leve to synne..for an anuel rente bi ȝere.

a1450–1509 (?a1300) Richard Coer de Lyon (A-version) (1913) 4056 (MED) Kyng R. hys ax in hond he hente, And payde Sarezynys here rente.

a1500 (?a1410) J. Lydgate Churl & Bird (Lansd.) 157 in Minor Poems (1934) ii. 475 Yiff thou wilt..sofre me gon frely..Without raunsom or any othir rent.

1535 W. Stewart tr. H. Boethius Bk. Cron. Scotl. (1858) III. 550 Aganis this erle all Holland did rebell And of thair rentis wald no ansuer mak.

1659 P. Heylyn Examen Historicum ii. 182 That every Minister..may sue for the Recovery of his Tythes, Rents and other duties.

1703 W. Burkitt Expos. Notes New Test. Mark vi. 13 Rather than pay the Constant Rent of Daily Relief to their poor Parents.

1787 A. Young Jrnl. 19 Aug. in Travels (1792) I. 44 Auch..is almost without manufactures or commerce and is supported chiefly by the rents of the country. But they have many of the noblesse in the province, too poor to live here.

b. A periodical payment made by a tenant to an owner or landlord for the use of land or buildings. Also: the sum paid for the hire of machinery, etc., for a certain time.†rent of assize: see assize n. 2b. See also ground rent n., quit-rent n., rack rent n., peppercorn rent n. at peppercorn n. and adj. Compounds 2, petty rent n. at petty adj. and n. Compounds 1a.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > hire or rent > rent (land or real property) > [noun]

gavela1121

rentc1300

rental1441

gavelagec1450

rentage1633

mail duty1638

galea1687

wayleave1729

society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > hire or rent > [noun]

hirec1000

layc1175

wage1447

rent1891

c1300 St. Thomas Becket (Laud) 398 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary (1887) 118 (MED) A taillage þov taxt fram ȝer to ȝer..And axest it for a certeine rente.

c1350 Apocalypse St. John: A Version (Harl. 874) (1961) 107 (MED) Non ne shal haue power to ȝiue rentes ne to resceyue.

a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 28438 (MED) Toll and tak, and rent o syse, Wit-halden i haue wit couettise.

c1440 Sir Degrevant (Thornton) (1949) 139 (MED) His husbandes þat gaffe hym rent Heryede in plighte.

1480–1 in Hist. MSS Comm.: 10th Rep.: App. Pt. V: MSS Marquis of Ormonde &c. (1885) 316 in Parl. Papers (C. 4576-I) XLII. 1 The rennt of the nexte terme..shall be arrestid in the tenannts hands.

1560 J. Daus tr. J. Sleidane Commentaries f. lx Some of them pay more rent yerely than theyr Fermes be worth.

1581 T. Lupton 2nd Pt. Too Good to be True sig. E^v Doe they enhaunce their Rents with you?

1607 J. Norden Surueyors Dialogue ii. 49 I be Lord of many Mannors, and no doubt I receiue rentes of euery of these kindes.

a1652 R. Brome City Wit ii. ii. sig. B6^v, in Five New Playes (1653) A poor Doctor of Physick..has paid a quarters rent of his house afore-hand.

1707 J. Mortimer Whole Art Husbandry (1721) I. 391 They commonly allow a Farm to make three Rents, one for the Landlord, one for Charges, and one for the Tenant to live on.

1711 London Gaz. No. 4902/4 The Ground Lease expires at Christmas... Rent reserv'd 4l. 16s. per Annum.

1736 J. Murray Lett. (1901) 24 I have got a good convenient house on rent.

1766 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. II. 42 Rents of assise are the certain established rents of the freeholders and copyholders of a manor, which cannot be departed from or varied.

1820 J. Gifford Compl. Eng. Lawyer 411 Where the rent is a large sum, the tenant should have it in readiness before sunset.

1865 S. Baring-Gould Bk. Were-wolves xiv. 239 Each tenant pays no rent for his cottage and patch of field, but is bound to work a fixed number of days for his landlord.

1891 Spectator 18 July 100/2 They include the ‘rent’ of the engine and trucks, the cost of fuel, and the pay of engine-driver.

1987 E. Feinstein Captive Lion ix. 207 By September they were seriously behind with the rent.

1996 Which? Guide to starting your own Business (new ed.) ii. 39 The plant, equipment and vehicles you need are bought by the lessor (who may be a finance company) and then leased to you for an agreed rent.

c. A piece of property for which rent is charged or paid; an apartment for rent; (in plural) a number of tenements or houses let out to others, frequently named after the proprietor (now archaic and historical). Also in figurative context (in quot. a1631). Now U.S. regional (New England).

ΘΚΠ

the mind > possession > possessions > [noun] > real or immovable property > property which is let or re-let

rent1422

relet1861

sublet1928

society > law > legal right > right of possession or ownership > tenure of property > a legal holding > [noun] > leasehold land or tenement

tenantry1385

take1392

rent1422

tenantryc1450

tack?a1500

tenancy1579

tenanty1612

rentage1892

1422 in R. W. Chambers & M. Daunt Bk. London Eng. (1931) 125 (MED) Le preuy in Richard Osberne Rent endited for grete stenche that commyth out in-to the hye way of fylthe, the which is noyance to the peopl.

1467 in Manners & Househ. Expenses Eng. (1841) 341 (MED) It was agreid..that my said mastyr schal paye hym for the rente that the [read he] rentythe to hym..wyche drawyth be yere iiij marc.

1491–2 in H. Littlehales Medieval Rec. London City Church (1905) 175 Reparacyons of the new howse in the cherche Rentes.

1517–18 in H. Littlehales Medieval Rec. London City Church (1905) 299 Ress' of Thomas Clayton for that Remayned in his hondes of the byldyng of Nasynges Renttes next baattes howse xjs. iijd.

1550 R. Crowley Way to Wealth sig. Aiii^v Whole allyes, whole rentes, whole rowes, yea whole streats.

a1631 J. Donne Poems (1635) 91 Which hath divided heaven in tenements, And with..theeves, and murderers stuft his rents So full.

1732 Acc. Workhouses 21 Another workhouse..belonging to the liberty of Hatton-Garden, Saffron-hill, and Ely-Rents.

1847 J. S. Coyne How to settle Accts. with Laundress 6 You used not to wear such waistcoats as that when you lived in Fuller's Rents.

a1902 S. Butler Way of All Flesh (1903) lv. 254 A rag and bottle merchant in Birdsey's Rents.

1913 Dial. Notes 4 1 Rent, tenement. ‘Have you found a rent yet?’

1926 Dial. Notes 5 388 Rent,..apartment or rentable house.

1950 Portland (Maine) Press Herald 4 Sept. 2 (advt.) Perhaps it's a rent or a tenant that you have been wanting.

1977 Kennebec Jrnl. (Augusta, Maine) 14 May 15/1 As anyone who has gone apartment hunting in the last few years knows it has become harder to find a rent in Augusta.

1993 P. Ackroyd House of Dr. Dee (1994) i. 35 He lived in a rambling tenement in the Bishop of London's rents.

1998 in Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. (2002) IV. 557/2 It sounded odd to me when I first moved here... People around here would say, ‘She's looking for a rent.’

d. (a) Money, cash, esp. that acquired by criminal activity or in exchange for homosexual favours; (b) (hence in extended use) a rent boy; rent boys collectively (see rent boy n. at Compounds 2).

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > money > [noun]

silverc825

feec870

pennieseOE

wortheOE

mintOE

scata1122

spense?c1225

spendinga1290

sumc1300

gooda1325

moneya1325

cattlec1330

muckc1330

reasona1382

pecunyc1400

gilt1497

argentc1500

gelta1529

Mammon1539

ale silver1541

scruff1559

the sinews of war1560

sterling1565

lour1567

will-do-all1583

shell1591

trasha1592

quinyie1596

brass1597

pecuniary1604

dust1607

nomisma1614

countera1616

cross and pilea1625

gingerbreada1625

rhinoa1628

cash1646

grig1657

spanker1663

cole1673

goree1699

mopus1699

quid1699

ribbin1699

bustle1763

necessary1772

stuff1775

needfula1777

iron1785

(the) Spanish1788

pecuniar1793

kelter1807

dibs1812

steven1812

pewter1814

brad1819

pogue1819

rent1823

stumpy1828

posh1830

L. S. D.1835

rivetc1835

tin1836

mint sauce1839

nobbins1846

ochre1846

dingbat1848

dough1848

cheese1850

California1851

mali1851

ducat1853

pay dirt1853

boodle?1856

dinero1856

scad1856

the shiny1856

spondulicks1857

rust1858

soap1860

sugar1862

coin1874

filthy1876

wampum1876

ooftish1877

shekel1883

oil1885

oof1885

mon1888

Jack1890

sploshc1890

bees and honey1892

spending-brass1896

stiff1897

mazuma1900

mazoom1901

cabbage1903

lettuce1903

Oscar Asche1905

jingle1906

doubloons1908

kale1912

scratch1914

green1917

oscar1917

snow1925

poke1926

oodle1930

potatos1931

bread1935

moolah1936

acker1939

moo1941

lolly1943

loot1943

poppy1943

mazoola1944

dosh1953

bickies1966

lovely jubbly1990

scrilla1994

society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > [noun] > money gained dishonestly

rent1823

society > morality > moral evil > licentiousness > unchastity > prostitution > [noun] > male prostitute

sellary1598

spintry1598

varlet1609

whore1609

prostitute1761

renter1893

trade1919

pimp1942

call boy1943

rent1967

rent boy1969

tart1976

1823 ‘J. Bee’ Slang Rent, collect the, to obtain money upon the highway.

1828 W. T. Moncrieff Tom & Jerry i. 20 Blunt, my dear boy, is..to be able to flash the screens—sport the rhino—shew the needful—post the pony—nap the rent... Money, money, is your universal good.

1925 E. Fraser & J. Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 242 Rent, money: cash.

1936 ‘J. Curtis’ Gilt Kid xii. 127 I haven't done anything since I've come out of the nick and the old rent's running a bit low.

1967 A. Wilson No Laughing Matter iii. 306 I've been rent myself once... I just gave what they paid me for.

1977 Gay News 24 Mar. 15/3 A word of warning about the Strand Bar in Hope Street... It's rough and some of the people there are rent.

2003 Attitude Jan. 146/1 Have sex with some rent, watch them leave as soon as they've pocketed the dosh and die a horrible lonely death.

e. Originally North American. for rent: (available) to be rented; to let. Cf. rent v.² 5a.

ΚΠ

1827 Western Monthly Rev. May 61 Emigrants complain, that there are no houses for rent.

1852 N.Y. Herald 6 May 6/6 The meeting house was put up for rent to the highest bidder.

1879 F. R. Stockton Rudder Grange i. 8 It was not an easy thing to find a canal-boat. There were none advertised for rent.

1904 Charlotte (N. Carolina) Observer 27 May 4 (advt.) For Rent... First class dwelling, No. 907 Elizabeth Avenue.

1934 Times 7 June 25/1 (advt.) Perfect small house for rent.

1981 Beautiful Brit. Columbia Summer 31/2 Boats are for rent at many of these locations and fishing advice is available.

2005 N.Y. Mag. 14 Mar. 132/2 (advt.) ResortQuest has 730 properties for rent on the Outer Banks.

†3.

a. Scottish. Interest. Chiefly in on rent: at interest. Obsolete. rare.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > financial dealings > moneylending > [adverb] > at interest

at, to, on, upon usurya1400

to use1598

upon usea1607

at use1609

on rent1609

1609 J. Skene Regiam Majestatem i. f. 52^v Ane thing lattin and receaved to hyre for rent and profite.

a1611 Burgh Rec. Stirling (1888) I. 126 The soume of ane hundrethe merkis..to be imployed be the toun on rent to the help of the ministrie of this burghe.

b. In France: a sum paid as interest upon a public debt. Obsolete.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > financial dealings > moneylending > [noun] > moneylending at interest > interest > other kinds of interest

rent1653

1653 Mercurius Politicus No. 137. 2179 The King's necessities were great, and therefore forced to detain those Rents, for the paying of his Forces.

1689 N. Luttrell Diary in Brief Hist. Relation State Affairs (1857) I. 605 He [sc. the King] hath published an edict for a new creation of rents upon the town house of Paris.

1697 D. Defoe Ess. Projects 60 The Bank hereby becomes the Publick Stock of the Town, something like what they call the Rents of the Town-House in France.

1759 Hist. War in Ann. Reg. 55 (note) The French court have stopped payment of the following public debts, viz. 1. The three kinds of rents created on the posts.

1815 Observer 19 Mar. 2/4 Oudinot's corps, which were formerly Les Gardes Imperiales, but now Les Gardes du Roi, et de Royaume, are staunch. Funds rose to-day considerably. Rents which had been as low as 96, were done at 69-50.

4. Economics. The surplus payment to a factor of production (e.g. land, labour, etc.) over and above what is necessary to keep it in its present use; rent of ability: such payment earned by a person's individual skill or ability. Cf. economic rent n. at economic n. and adj. Compounds.David Ricardo is generally considered the first rigorous user of the concept, but he does not appear to use a concise and unambiguous definition of it in his works (cf. Princ. Polit. Econ. (1817) ii. 49 for a loosely worded definition).

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > profit > [noun] > regarded as result of ability

rent1929

1662 W. Petty Treat. Taxes 24 When this man hath subducted his seed out of the proceed of his Harvest, and also, what himself hath both eaten and given to others in exchange for Clothes, and other Natural necessaries; that the remainder of Corn, is the natural and true Rent of the Land for that year.

1777 J. Anderson Enquiry Nature Corn-laws 45 It is not, however, the rent of the land that determines the price of its produce, but it is the price of that produce which determines the rent of the land.

1815 T. R. Malthus Inquiry Nature & Progress Rent 1 The rent of land may be defined to be that portion of the value of the whole produce which remains to the owner of the land, after all the outgoings belonging to its cultivation..have been paid, including the profits of the capital employed, estimated according to the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock at the time being.

1848 J. S. Mill Princ. Polit. Econ. I. ii. xvi. 500 The rent, therefore, which any land will yield, is the excess of its produce, beyond what would be returned to the same capital if employed on the worst land in cultivation.

1879 A. Marshall & M. P. Marshall Econ. Industry ii. xii. 144 Rent of rare natural abilities is a specially important element in the incomes of business men.

1905 G. B. Shaw Irrational Knot p. xv There is an important economic factor, first analyzed by an American economist (General Walker), and called rent of ability.

1929 S. E. Thomas Elem. Econ. (ed. 4) xvii. 261 We may say that there is a rent element in both profits and wages, and that this element depends on the natural or acquired gifts of the employer or worker concerned. Where the differential payment is due to differences of ability, it may be suitably and correctly described as a rent of ability.

1930 Times 6 May 12/2 The Fabian Society formerly pleaded for the rent of ability, but the plea fell on deaf ears.

1993 J. Kay Found. Corporate Success i. ii. 30 Added value (called rent or super normal profit by economists) is a concept with a long intellectual history.

Compounds

C1.

a. Appositive, in the sense ‘that is given as rent’.

rent barley n. now historical and rare

ΚΠ

a1576 L. Nowell Vocabularium Saxonicum (1952) 35/1 Bereȝefol, rent barlye.

a1765 C. Parkin Blomefield's Ess. Topogr. Hist. Norfolk (1775) V. 984 Rent barley per ann. 6 quarters, lacking half a bushel, at 8s. the quarter.

1994 C. Oestmann Lordship & Community ii. vii. 137 These items were not the result of his own farming efforts, but partly rent payments in kind, such as 100 combs of barley which he received as rent barley.

† rent-beeves n. [ < rent n.¹ + the plural of beef n.] Obsolete

ΚΠ

1612 J. Davies Discouerie Causes Ireland 17 Such charges as were made vppon Oneale, for Rent-Beeues.

1655 T. Fuller Church-hist. Brit. vi. 298 As for rent-beeves, sheep, pullein, &c. reserved on their leases, Tenants both payed them the more easily, as growing on the same, and the more cheerfully, because at any time they might freely eat their full share thereof, when repairing to their Land-lords bountiful table.

1786 C. Vallancey Collectanea de Rebus Hibern. (ed. 2) I. iii. i. ii. 396 The kings of England, even as late as the thirteenth century, were often paid in the like old coin of beeves, which were thence called rent-beeves.

† rent capon n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1616 J. Deacon Tobacco Tortured 78 Their extraordinarie rent-corne, rent-coales, rent-capons, and I wot not what.

a1643 W. Cartwright Ordinary (1651) v. iii. 79 To screw your wretched Tenants up To th' utmost farthing, and then stand upon The third Rent Capon.

a1765 C. Parkin Blomefield's Ess. Topogr. Hist. Norfolk (1775) V. 984 Rent barley per ann. 6 quarters, lacking half a bushel, at 8s. the quarter, 47s. 6d, rent capons 17s. rent hens 5, 2s. 6d. with feed for 400 and a half of sheep.

rent corn n.

ΚΠ

1527 Statutes Prohemium Iohannis Rastell (new ed.) f. cciiii^v In the same statute..ye shall se..that rent corne in graynges and all mouable goodes except rydyng gere raymente & vtensylles of housholde shall be callyd issues.

1580 T. Tusser Fiue Hundred Pointes Good Husbandrie (new ed.) f. 9 Rent corne to be paid, for a reasnable rent.

1642 Magna Ch. in E. Coke 2nd Pt. Inst. Lawes Eng. viii Work-days, rent cummin, rent corn, etc...called Redditus nigri, black maile, that is, black rents.

1771 J. Shebbeare Authentic Narr. Oppress. Islanders Jersey I. viii. 237 The rent corn, to the carriage of which the inhabitants were liable, was to be carried to the castle within three weeks before Christmas.

1802 W. Clark Let. 2 Mar. in Dear Brother (2002) 44 Col Armstrong has Soled all the rent Corn at Miamis.

1895 Freeborn (Minnesota) County Standard 31 July 1/4 I will hire men in the fall..and crib my rent corn.

1992 P. T. Stroud Thomas Say xiv. 240 The tenant farmers brought in precious little ‘rent corn’, complaining that cattle broke through their fences and ate the crop.

† rent egg n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1366 in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1898) I. 45 De 240 Rent Egges, nil.

1649 Surv. Manor Canon Pyon 40 And the surplusage of the sum the Bailiff hath for gathering the same and fourteen of the rent Hens and three score of the rent Eggs.

† rent-goose n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1340 in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1898) I. 37 (MED) In 40 auc. quarum 14 Renteges, 5 s. 5 d.

† rent-hen n. [compare post-classical Latin gallina rentalis (1450 in a British source)] Obsolete

ΚΠ

1345 in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1898) I. 41 (MED) Preter 50 Renthennes, 24 s.

1431–2 in J. Raine Inventories & Acct. Rolls Benedictine Houses Jarrow & Monk-Wearmouth (1854) 98 Pro rentehennes et wodsilver pro Jarowe et Monketon, xxijd.

?1577 Misogonus iii. i, in R. W. Bond Early Plays from Ital. (1911) 221 What is there no body to take my rent hens.

1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Ostize, a rent henne, &c., paid, or deliuered, in lieu of a dwelling house.

1777 J. Nicolson & R. Burn Hist. Westmorland & Cumberland I. ii. vi. 120 The rent hens, capons, and boons, to be purchased and sold at 16 years value.

1834 New Eng.-German Dict. (1835) I. 241 Huhn,..rent-hen.

† rent oyster n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1651 Maldon (Essex) Borough Deeds (Bundle 81, No. 1^v) For fetching of two bushells of rent oisters from Tollesbury.

rent-penny n. now historical

ΚΠ

1643 E. Calamy Noble-mans Patterne of True & Reall Thankfulnesse 2 It [sc. Thanks-giving] is the only rent penny which God requires for all the blessings hee bestowes upon us.

a1696 P. Henry in M. Henry Life x, in M. Henry Wks. (1853) II. 737/1 Praise is our rent-penny, which we pay to our great Landlord.

2000 Amer. Jrnl. Econ. & Sociol. 59 260 At the same time, the ‘rent-penny’—a three percent tax on rents collected for the use of buildings—was reduced to 1.5 percent.

† rent salt n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1399–1400 in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1901) III. 602 Pro cariacione de rentsalt, 18 d.

1800 Jrnl. Assembly State N.Y. (heading) The Rent Salt received for the arrears of Rent, due previous to the 1st day of May, 1799.

1895 Jrnl. Polit. Econ. 3 187 The lessees..to protect themselves against the competition of the rent salt, secured an agreement that none of it should be sold for less then a given minimum unless a reduction were consented to by them.

b. Objective and parasynthetic.

rent-collector n.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > hire or rent > rent (land or real property) > [noun] > rent-collector

rent-gatherer1332

kaner1590

taker-upa1649

rent-collector1821

1821 Leeds Mercury 17 Mar. Apply to Mr. Musgrave, Rent-Collector, Duke-Street, who will show the Tenements and treat for the same.

1823 ‘J. Bee’ Slang Rent-collector, a highwayman who robs for money only.

1875 W. S. Hayward Love against World 9 My agent, who employs the same rent collector as he does.

1932 T. S. Eliot Sweeney Agonistes 29 If he was alive then the milkman wasn't and the rent-collector wasn't.

1996 J. Grenfell-Hill Growing up in Wales 164 Everybody came on a Monday: the rent collector, the tally-man..and the insurance man.

† rent-enhancer n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1615 R. Brathwait Strappado 214 Now (rent-inhauncer) where away so fast?

rent-holder n.

ΚΠ

1657 J. Trapp Comm. Job xxxi. 39 [I have caused] the poor Rent-holders..to misse of a subsistence.

1790 E. Leach Treat. Universal Inland Navigations ix. 146 Such as live on, and farm their own lands, and some of the most capital of the rent-holders, carry much more manure than the common and inferior rent-holders.

1836 Guernsey & Jersey Mag. 1 191 That part of the system which acknowledged as perpetual those guarantees which are now limited to forty years, and allowed the rent-holder the privilege of claiming from the garant no less than nine years' arrears.

2001 P. Boettke in J. E. Biddle et al. Economics broadly Considered xi. 213 It might cost more to compensate the pre-existing rent-holder for their loss of the future income stream.

rent-hunter n. (sense 2c).

ΚΠ

1943 Boston Herald 28 July 12/1 A recent..cartoon showed two weary rent-hunters walking past the White House.

rent master n. [originally after Middle Dutch rentmeester, rentemeester, rentmeister, etc. (compare quot. c1483; Dutch rentmeester). Compare Middle Low German rentemēster, rentemeister, rentmēster, rentmeister, Middle High German rentmeister (German Rentmeister)]

ΚΠ

c1483 in Notes & Queries (1969) July 253/1 Rentmeester: rentmaister.

1546 J. Bale tr. J. Jonas True Hystorie Christen Departynge M. Luther f. 9 Huldrick hans hys frynde, whych was there the rent mastre [Ger. Rendtmeister] of that cytie.

a1617 J. Melville Mem. Own Life (1827) 381 The rentmesters and ther officers..to be trew responseable mean men.

1762 P. Murdoch tr. A. F. Büsching New Syst. Geogr. IV. 339 The bishopric is divided into prefecturates, each of which has a noble seneschal belonging to it, together with a rent-master, who collects the board-revenues belonging to the bishop.

1839 H. Pigott Rec. Real Life in Palace & Cottage I. xii. 263 On the opposite side of the court, appeared the Rent-master with his wife and children.

1851 Wisconsin Express 8 May 3/1 The rent master also took a lively interest in the new comer.

2001 Metrop. Mus. Mus. Jrnl. 36 157/2 He was also a rent master..that is, a collector of revenues on behalf of the city council.

† rent owner n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1821 Rep. Cases Court of Exchequer VII. 417 Entitling the party to re-enter, and have again the land without regard to any possibility or power the rent owner may have to obtain the rent, by any other means or exertions of his own.

1897 Harvard Law Rev. 11 4 It was no injury to the rent owner that the tenant appropriated the whole of the rents and profits to his own use.

rent payer n.

ΚΠ

1622 Relation Eng. Plantation Plimoth, New Eng. 72 The rent taker liues on sweet morsels, but the rent payer eats a drie crust often with watery eies.

1885 Kendal Mercury 10 July 5/3 Denunciation of rent claimers, of rent payers, and above all of land-grabbers.

1936 H. M. Kallen Decline & Rise of Consumer x. 261 Consumerization converts rent payers into home owners.

2008 Birmingham Evening Mail (Nexis) 29 July 39 I too think it was fair that every wage earner living in the city..actually paid their share instead of lumping it all on home owners and rent payers.

rent-paying n. and adj.

ΚΠ

1405 in H. M. Flasdieck Mittelengl. Originalurkunden (1926) 36 The forsaid newe hauen is at Walberswyk..shal bene afulbonde for euer more be twen bothe parties, for the forsaide annuell rent paiyng.

1441 in P. E. Jones Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls London Guildhall (1954) V. 67 At þe vsell vsuell dayes of Rent paying..at Witsonday, Lammasday, alhalowday, and Candelmasday..pay or do pay to þe seid Prioresse, [etc.].

1797 Distilleries Considered 12 Let the cautious landlord remember, that this is a great rent-paying article.

1877 Scribner's Monthly Jan. 348/2 The former rent-paying tenant was invited to become his own landlord.

1997 Neon May 7/2 Thomas..starred in a procession of rent-paying US TV movies.

rent-raiser n.

ΚΠ

1549 H. Latimer 1st Serm. before Kynges Grace sig. Dii^v You landelordes, you rentreisers,..you haue for your possessions yerely to much.

1721 J. Strype Eccl. Memorials II. ii. xxiv. 453 There might be Promoters,..to promote all other Offenders: such as Rent-raisers, Oppressors of the Poor, Extortioners, Bribers, Usurers.

1882 Times 15 Nov. 5/6 The answer is that the name ‘valuator’ (synonymous in Ulster with ‘rent-raiser’) inspires distrust and terror in the minds of the agricultural classes.

1920 Winnipeg Free Press 17 July 6/5 Do not have a dictator and a rent raiser govern where you shall or shall not live.

1994 P. Bew Ideology & Irish Question (1998) 83 Aird accused Meehan of failing to support the labourers' strike at Ballyfin; Meehan replied by accusing Aird of being a rent-raiser himself.

rent-raising n. and adj.

ΚΠ

1556 R. Robinson tr. T. More Utopia (ed. 2) f. 12 (margin) Landlordes by the wai checked for Rent-raisyng.

1604 S. Rowlands Looke to It sig. D4^v Rent-raysing rascals, you that care not how You do exact vpon the needy wretch, That liue euen on the poore mans sweating brow, And from his painefull toyle, your ryches fetch.

1793 J. Anderson Bee 3 Apr. 189 It is a state of mind, which, if the system of rent-raising continue to prevail with the same rigour which has been employed for some time past, will fall to the share of few among the class of farmers.

1876 Times 24 Apr. 10/5 It is altogether owing to an artificial system of rent raising.

1995 A. Macinnes in S. G. Ellis & S. Barber Conquest & Union vii. 186 The vernacular poets' stress on the traditional obligations of chiefs and leading gentry to their clansmen did not reverse absenteeism, prevent the accumulation of debts, or check rent-raising throughout Scottish Gaeldom.

† rent-raker n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1611 J. Speed Hist. Great Brit. ix. ix. 524/1 The Legate himselfe, whom they termed an Vsurer, Symonist, Rent-raker, Money-thirster.

† rent-rearer n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1549 H. Latimer 1st Serm. before Kynges Grace sig. Diiii Then these grasiers, and inclosers, renterearers, are hindrers of the kings honour.

1612 J. Taylor Sculler sig. D4^v Our Christian brother heere lyes dead..Who was the patterne of true Charity: No Drunkard, Whoremonger, nor no vile swearer, No greedy Vsurer, nor no Rent-rearer.

rent-receiver n.

ΚΠ

1614 R. Tailor Hogge hath lost Pearle iv. sig. F2^v Creatures, with curious nature fram'd as I suppose, For rent receauers to her treasury.

1794 Times 19 Aug. 2/3 On the 28th, at night, were guillotined here, the following persons—Maximilian Robspierre, 35 years old, a native of Arras..P. Guerin, a Rent-receiver.

1894 A. Morrison Tales Mean Streets 294 A professional rent-receiver and seller-up.

1943 in E. Blunden Return to Husbandry 12 The squire has become an absentee landlord, a mere rent-receiver.

2000 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 105 1554 It is in their interest to eliminate the rent, and in the interest of the rent receiver to protect the advantage.

rent-warner n.

ΚΠ

1836 Times 5 Mar. 1/4 I never employed him as a rent warner.

1903 M. MacDonagh Life Daniel O'Connell ix. 162 A..body of men—escorted by the bailiffs and rent-warners of the estate.

1907 Times 2 Oct. 12/5 The owner of the cattle is bailiff and rent warner on several properties near Ennis.

rent-yielding adj.

ΚΠ

1839 R. Dawes Nix's Mate I. i. 14 Alas! that venerable hill has fallen before the avarice of man, and is now covered by rent-yielding palaces.

1848 J. S. Mill Princ. Polit. Econ. I. iii. v. 565 Selling at a scarcity value..never is, nor has been, nor can be, a permanent condition of any of the great rent-yielding commodities.

1891 Polit. Sci. Q. 6 132 He has recognized as rent-yielding agents not only land, but a number of other things that give to some producers advantages over others.

1956 W. Isard Location & Space-Economy (1965) 197 Thus, theoretically, the farm operator is indifferent to the position at which he is located, provided, of course, he is within the rent-yielding hinterland.

1990 Jrnl. Semitic Stud. 35 364 A sustained effort..to ensure that those who controlled the rent-yielding property..should be legally enabled to extract ‘fair’ rent from their cultivators.

c. Miscellaneous attributive uses. See also rentcharge n., rent roll n., etc.

rent allowance n.

ΚΠ

1884 Manitoba Daily Free Press 8 Apr. 2/1 This will probably leave him only a few hundred dollars of the rent allowance for his own pocket.

1947 Rep. Assistance Board 1946 iv. 21 The Statutory Regulations provide for the addition of a ‘rent allowance’ according to the circumstances of each individual case.

1998 A. O'Hanlon Talk of Town (1999) ii. iv. 141 Not even claiming rent allowance because of his stupid pride.

rent-arrear n. (also rent-arrears)

ΚΠ

1669 Ormonde MSS. in 10th Rep. Royal Comm. Hist. MSS (1885) App. v. 89 Recovery of rent-arrears due on lands in the county of Dublin.

1714 G. Jacob Accomplish'd Conveyancer I. 176 If there were any Rent arrear at the Rent-day before the Lessor's Death, then the Executors or Administrators shall have that, and may either distrain, or have an Action of Debt for it.

1817 W. Selwyn Abridgem. Law Nisi Prius (ed. 4) II. 1121 If the defendant avow for so much rent arrear, part whereof is not due at the time of the distress, and enters judgment for the whole, it will be error.

1880 Times 6 Sept. 6/8 When he took possession of the field he made himself responsible in ecclesiastical law for the tithe rent arrears.

1976 Lancs. Evening Post 7 Dec. 3/3 The rent arrears started to build up but she had apparently used the money to buy clothes for her children.

2000 Big Issue 28 Feb. 6/3 The couple, up to their eyeballs in rent arrears, were only entitled to nominal housing benefit and their son refused to pay for food or rent.

rent assessment n.

ΚΠ

1881 Times 21 Apr. 9/3 Every landlord whose tenants may seek to avail themselves of the advantages of the Bill..must be mulcted, as the preliminary step in the process of rent assessment.

1965 Act 13 & 14 Eliz. II. c. 75 §25 There shall be constituted rent assessment committees in accordance with the provisions of Schedule 2 to this Act.

1990 Which? Bks. Apr. 7/4 (caption) Letting your property This book will explain about rent levels and the role of the rent assessment committee.

rent book n.

ΚΠ

1616 F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Scornful Ladie i. sig. C3 Fire off thy annotations and thy rent bookes.

1718 J. Drummond Accomptant's Pocket-compan. 11 Having prepared the Rent-Book for the succeeding Year, the Rests come to be the first Article, as a Charge upon the Tenant in his next Accompt.

1830 M. Edgeworth Let. 4 Nov. (1971) 427 The rent to us is to be from his commencement the raised rent. See Rent book.

1898 Daily News 19 Dec. 6/7 The rent was higher than was stated on the rent book.

1978 Lancashire Life Apr. 67/1 He inspected Aunt Clara's rent-book and asked her for the names of her grocer and butcher.

2003 T. Morton Further North you Go 10 ‘How much?’.. ‘That depends..Will you be wanting a rent book?’

rent contract n.

ΚΠ

1766 in Coll. Treaties of Peace, Alliance & Commerce (1772) II. 301 The possessor may present his paper, to the office of the Commission at Paris, there to be examined, revised, liquidated, and converted into reconnoissances, or rent contracts, according to the reduction fixed and agreed upon.

1876 Carroll County (Georgia) Times 21 Jan. 3/2 The rent contract was made with Mr. John Dunbar of Newman, though it is said others are associated with him.

1940 W. Faulkner Hamlet i. i. 14 But then I hear tell he always makes his rent contracts later than most.

2002 D. Wood Medieval Econ. Thought viii. 196 He, too, saw the rent contract as one of sale, but he suggested that what was sold was not money itself but a right to receive a particular sum of money over an agreed time span, or even for ever.

rent day n.

ΚΠ

1439 in L. Morsbach Mittelengl. Originalurkunden (1923) 18 (MED) The seyd margere and Rechard schall pey at ye rent-deys for haldyng of ye land to ye chefe lordes obuf.

1577 B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry i. f. 47 The lorde must not deale with his Tenaunt so straightly in euery poynt, as by lawe he might, for his rent dayes, bargaynes of wood, quit rentes, or suche, the rigour wherein is more troublesome then beneficial.

1616 T. Adams Garden of Graces in Divine Herball 26 If his rent-day make euen with his Silkeman, Mercer, Taylor, he is well.

1765 R. Cumberland Summer's Tale i. vii. 24 I am sure, before Mrs. Clara was with us, he never us'd to come to Father's, except upon Rent-day.

1811 J. Austen Sense & Sensibility I. ii. 21 To be tied down to the regular payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it takes away one's independence.

1912 Woman's Home Compan. Jan. 19/1 I worked like a beaver, and, before rent-day came around, had two housekeeping apartments and one ‘bachelor suite’ nicely fitted up.

1996 P. Wilde Which? Guide to Renting & Letting (rev. ed.) iii. 53 The tenant may at any time by written notice to the landlord require the following information in writing:..(b) the rent payable and the rent days.

rent dinner n.

ΚΠ

1843 W. M. Thackeray Ravenswing vii, in Fraser's Mag. Sept. 324/1 They would invite all farmers to a rent-dinner.

1905 H. Evans Highways & Byways in Oxf. & Cotswolds iv. 84 At some colleges the annual rent dinner is still kept up.

1981 J. Robin Elmdon viii. 158 The tenant's place at the annual rent dinner.

2007 Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Nexis) 23 Feb. 28 Newspaper reports of the time talked in awed tones of the ‘rent dinners’, when Lord Dartmouth's better-off tenants would gather for three days of feasting, with fine food and wines.

rent man n.

ΚΠ

?1750 Country Lamentation 5 There's soap, stiffin, and blew so bright, With pins and needles that's fu' tight, Makes us slip off 'twixt day and night, And leave the masters rent man.

1856 X. D. MacLeod Biogr. Hon. Fernando Wood xvi. 293 The rent man, with a disappointed air, retired with his friend.

1943 L. Hughes in Poetry Sept. 312 The rent man knocked.

1996 F. McCourt Angela's Ashes (1997) xii. 320 The rent man is losing patience. He tells Mam, Four weeks behind you are, missus.

rent money n.

ΚΠ

1591 G. Fletcher Of Russe Common Wealth xii. f. 37 The inhabitants or tenants of these and the other townes, pay some rent money, some other rent dueties (called Obrokey) as certeine Chetfirds.

1746 N.-Y. Weekly Post-boy 19 May 2/1 His Landlord permits him to make use of his Rent Money for Fifty Years without demanding it.

1824 Ann. Reg. July 99/1 He saw the same man force open the chest in which he kept the rent-money.

1956 H. Gold Man who was not with It ii. 11 I saw that squirrelly look which says: ‘Win it all back with the rent money’.

2004 J. Denby Billie Morgan xv. 131 Food for t' babby, an' the rent money owin'.

rent office n.

ΚΠ

1786 Trans. India from Commencement French War v. 142 The payments of the zimindars were retarded by a collusion with the cutcherry or rent office.

1838 Jrnl. Statist. Soc. 1 113 With the view of attempting to supply the defects in the doubtful information hitherto received..an application..has been made to the heads of the Rent-Office and Managers of the Royal Domains.

1900 Times 6 Mar. 6/2 He advocated the destruction of landlordism and the ending of the rent office.

1971 B. Malamud Tenants 6 From the District Rent Office..Harry had learned he was a statutory tenant.

2003 P. Pillay in D. Chislett Urban 03 88 I was sitting in the bus and I was telling this auntie sitting by me that I'm going to go see my old friend outside the rent office.

rent officer n.

ΚΠ

1889 Times 15 May 6/3 Shaughnessy..fought with the usual weapons of the rent officer against the return of the Nationalist candidate.

1976 Southern Evening Echo (Southampton) 13 Nov. 6/5 The rent officer in determining fair rents can consider under his brief the property and then fix his figure with reference to similar properties.

1994 T. Byrne Local Govt. in Brit. (ed. 6) iv. 100 Rents are settled (if necessary with the assistance of rent officers and rent panels).

rent payment n.

ΚΠ

1787 W. Hutchinson Hist. & Antiq. Durham II. 497 They were so stiled from their rent payments, which we presume were anciently made in grain.

1898 Naugatuck (Connecticut) Daily News 4 Aug. (heading) Twenty-five cents must be paid on receipts for rent payment.

1989 Atlantic Sept. 72/2 In this neat room, a place of official normalcy, tenants make their rent payments, request repairs, and lodge complaints.

2004 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 23 Nov. a22/3 Congress approved $20 billion..for the Section 8 housing program, which helps poor people meet their rent payments.

rent rebate n.

ΚΠ

1910 Newark (Ohio) Advocate 17 Nov. 1/7 (headline) Rent rebate for babies.

1936 G. Wilson Rent Rebates 10 There is a not inconsiderable body of opinion which has already expressed itself in favour of the adoption of rent rebate schemes.

1999 Nouse Mar. 2/2 The motion to campaign for rent rebates and enforcement of the guidelines set down by the York County Council was unopposed and passed almost unanimously.

rent restriction n.

ΚΠ

1899 Jrnl. Soc. Compar. Legislation 1 505 The Distress for Rent Restriction Act, 1898..protects..the property of, or under hire to, any woman, from distress for rent.

1920 Times 22 June 16/4 The House occupied most of its time to-day in discussing the Rent Restriction Bill.

1940 Economist 5 Oct. 422/2 Profiteers have been threatened with the Rent Restriction Acts.

1952 A. Christie Mrs. McGinty's Dead ii. 17 Under the Rent Restriction Act the landlord couldn't get the old woman out.

2003 R. Codlin Hist. Found. of Jamaican Law iii. 28 Due process was established by virtue of section 27, as amended, of the Rent Restriction Act.

† rent-scot n. Obsolete

ΚΠ

1631 in P. Bingham Rep. Court Common Pleas (1829) 5 341 A grant..of..all rents, revenues, and services, rents-charge, rents-scot &c...arising in or within the lordships.

rent suit n.

ΚΠ

1854 Decisons Sudder Dewanny Adawlut 1853 378 The judge..requires the moonsiff to admit to representation in the rent suit, any party..who may establish their titles.

1883 19th Cent. Sept. 439 As regards the procedure in rent-suits, no material change is made by the Bill.

1979 Mod. Asian Stud. 13 113 By using a shorter pole for the batwara measurement and then presenting the results as evidence in a rent suit.

1996 Social Scientist 24 87 A false rent suit had been brought against him by the naib.

rent tribunal n.

ΚΠ

1896 Times 23 Apr. 7/4 If a rent tribunal had been in existence 25 years ago the tenants whose hard cases had been quoted would be in a better position to-day.

1945 Daily Herald 20 Apr. 4/3 Unanimous proposals of the Committee are: The establishment of 198 rent tribunals for England and Wales.

1973 E. Berckman Victorian Album 28 It means spending half your life before the Rent Tribunal.

1993 Jrnl. Econ. Lit. 31 435/1 What rent should a rent tribunal set?

C2.

rent boy n. slang a young male prostitute.

ΘΚΠ

society > morality > moral evil > licentiousness > unchastity > prostitution > [noun] > male prostitute

sellary1598

spintry1598

varlet1609

whore1609

prostitute1761

renter1893

trade1919

pimp1942

call boy1943

rent1967

rent boy1969

tart1976

1969 Jeremy 1 iii. 25/1 At the upper-end of the scene is the kept-boy who has little or nothing in common with the humbler ‘rent-boy’.

1976 M. Deakin & J. Willis Johnny go Home iii. 56 Between the ages of fifteen and twenty he had been a rent boy, a boy prostitute living and working in the West End.

1996 Sydney Morning Herald 12 Feb. (The Guide Suppl.) 17/2 Theo is a rentboy in Berlin.

rent car n. North American a hire car.

ΘΚΠ

society > travel > means of travel > a conveyance > vehicle > vehicles (plying) for hire > [noun] > hired car

rent car1915

1915 Los Angeles Times 2 Oct. ii. 3/6 William Graves..driver of a rent car, and his three passengers..were all thrown from their machine.

1932 W. Faulkner Light in August xv. 338 They went straight to the garage where Salmon keeps his rent car.

1970 Islander (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 6 Dec. 7/1 Ben quickly turned his machine into a ‘rent’ car. ‘They call them taxis now,’ he explained.

2003 S. Coonts Liberty 86 You think they're poor working slobs..driving a rent car that must cost them two hundred, maybe two-fifty a week?

rent control n. government control and regulation of the amounts charged for rented housing (esp. of a particular type), either by setting rent levels or restricting rent increases.

ΚΠ

1916 Marion (Ohio) Star 12 Mar. 8/1 The representatives of property owners imposed..withdrawal of OPA federal residential rent control from states adopting their own residential rent control laws.

1931 Rep. Inter-Departmental Committee Rent Restrictions Acts (Min. Health) xiv. 46 Some of us, if we had had the task of devising the original system of rent control..would perhaps have proposed the setting up of rent courts.

1997 Nation (N.Y.) 23 June 18/2 The major unions have made preserving rent control a priority..because many of their members live in regulated apartments.

rent-controlled adj. (of rented housing) subject to rent control; (also) designating a tenant of such housing.

ΚΠ

1929 Times 3 Jan. 14/4 All the houses in the district concerned were rent-controlled.

1959 N.Y. Times 15 Sept. 38/6 The reluctance of the courts to evict a rent-controlled tenant for reasons of misconduct.

1971 B. Malamud Tenants 6 The building was rent-controlled, and from the District Rent Office..Harry had learned he was a statutory tenant.

1996 City Paper (Baltimore) 4 Dec. 33/2 He lives in his parents' old, unfashionable house, not a ridiculously well-appointed, suspiciously rent-controlled New York apartment.

rent party n. U.S. (chiefly in African-American use) = house rent party n. at house rent n. Compounds 2.

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > social event > fund-raising events > [noun] > rent party

parlour social1883

house party1923

house rent party1925

rent party1925

stomp1926

boogie1929

shake1946

skiffle1946

1925 N.Y. Amsterdam News 28 Oct. 1/4 ‘Rent Parties’ which are given by persons to pay their house rent are becoming a menace to the community.

1956 M. W. Stearns Story of Jazz (1957) xiii. 145 Its ancestry was long obscured by labels such as ‘house-party’, ‘rent-party’, ‘parlor social’, or simply ‘Harlem’ piano style.

1968 P. Oliver Screening Blues vi. 203 One of the most frequently heard songs in the rent-party repertoire was The Boy in the Boat.

1993 S. L. Delany et al. Having our Say v. 97 The less well-to-do would hold ‘rent parties’, where, for a small entrance fee, visitors would drink bathtub gin and dance until dawn, raising money to pay the landlord.

2001 E. Bernard in L. Hughes & C. Van Vechten Remember me to Harlem p. xiv ‘Rent parties’, thrown ostensibly to raise rent money for the host, became an important way for blacks to congregate privately, away from the curious gazes of white people.

rent-seeker n. Economics a person who engages in rent-seeking.

ΚΠ

1974 A. Krueger in Amer. Econ Rev. 64 293/2 In most cases, people do not perceive themselves to be rent seekers.

2008 Canberra Times (Nexis) 30 Oct. What the Government must remember as it is being lobbied by rent-seekers is that business has known, since at least the time of the Kyoto protocol in 1997, that Australia and the rest of the world faced a carbon-constrained future.

rent-seeking n. Economics the fact or process of seeking to gain larger profits by manipulating public policy or economic conditions, esp. by means of securing beneficial subsidies or tariffs, making a product artificially scarce, etc.; cf. sense 4.

ΚΠ

1974 A. Krueger in Amer. Econ Rev. 64 291/1 Rent seeking results in a divergence between the private and social costs of certain activities.

2008 Wall St. Jrnl. 13 May a16/2 Once government creates an artificial scarcity of carbon, how the credits are allocated creates a huge new venue for political rent-seeking and more subsidies for favored industries.

rent stabilization n. U.S. = rent control n.In New York City rent stabilization differs from rent control, esp. in applying to different types of housing, although sometimes the terms are used interchangeably.

ΚΠ

1942 Indiana (Pa.) Evening Gaz. 23 July 14/2 There is no Federal rent control in these areas at this time and rent stabilization is on a voluntary basis.

1969 N.Y. Times 24 Apr. 46/6 New housing will not be subject to the new rent stabilization law and landlords can thus have field day in this sector.

2006 N.Y. Mag. 18 Sept. 38/1 New York has owed a key part of its allure—its unwillingness to honor class divisions with geographic ones—to rent stabilization.

rent-stabilized adj. U.S. (of rented housing) subject to rent stabilization; (also) designating a tenant of such housing; cf. rent-controlled adj.

ΚΠ

1970 N.Y. Times 29 June 39/1 The union had decided to withhold strike action to give the owners of the 1.3 million rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments in the city time to study the new rent-control law.

1971 N.Y. Mag. 29 Mar. 32/2 Unlike rent-controlled tenants,..rent-stabilized tenants must always have a lease.

2005 A. Ohlin Missing Person (2006) i. 6 Originally he'd helped my old roommate..get a rent-stabilized apartment in the building.

rent strike n. a refusal to pay rent, usually by a number of people as an organized protest.

ΘΚΠ

society > authority > lack of subjection > rebelliousness > militancy > [noun] > demonstration > types of demonstration or protest

counterprotest1595

student demonstration1856

lie-in1867

rent strike1881

hunger strike1889

march1908

protest march1914

occupation1920

lie-down1936

sit-down1936

sit-in1936

freedom march1947

vigil1956

freedom walk1957

swim-in1960

freedom ride1961

sitting in1961

sleep-out1961

fish-in1964

live-in1964

stall-in1964

sleep-in1965

Long March1967

love-in1967

talk-in1967

write-in1967

die-in1970

dirty protest1979

blanket protest1982

1881 Chicago Sunday Tribune 23 Oct. 6/1 All Irishmen are not socialists nor madmen, and..neither the well-to-do tenant nor priest will countenance a rising (for that is what a rent-strike would be).

1917 A. Cahan Rise of David Levinsky (1993) xiv. iii. 511 The real estate boom collapsed... Its immediate cause..was a series of rent strikes inspired and engineered by the Jewish socialists through their Yiddish daily.

1970 N.Y. Times 5 Feb. 38/6 The student organization also is lending moral and organizational support to..a widespread local rent strike.

1994 T. Byrne Local Govt. in Brit. (ed. 6) xiii. 443 But sometimes frustration breaks out in confrontation and direct action—demonstrations, rent strikes, occupation of nurseries or schools or squatting in houses, disturbing council meetings and inquiries or even rioting.

rent table n. a circular or octagonal table made in the 18th cent., later believed to have been used for the receipt of rent from tenants.

ΘΚΠ

society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > furniture and fittings > table > [noun] > other tables

dormant tablec1405

set board1512

chair-table1558

oyster table1559

brushing-table1575

stand board1580

table-chair1671

reading table1749

worktable1762

centre table1775

pier table1778

loo-table1789

screen table1793

social table1793

octoped1822

claw-table1832

bench table1838

mould1842

end table1851

pedestal table1858

picnic table1866

examining table1877

silver table1897

changing table1917

rent table1919

capstan table1927

conference table1928

tricoteuse1960

Parsons1962

overflow table1973

butcher's block1976

1919 Times 27 June 25/6 (advt.) A rare old Sheraton mahogany Irish rent-table.

1927 P. Macquoid & R. Edwards Dict. Eng. Furnit. III. 241 A..type, known as a ‘Rent-Table’, was introduced about this time [sc. 1750].

1952 J. Gloag Short Dict. Furnit. 387 Rent Table, a type of office table made during the second half of the 18th century, with a round or octagonal top, with drawers immediately below.

1973 V. Canning Finger of Saturn i. 4 He..set his briefcase on the round rent table.

1990 B. Gill N.Y. Life xii. 103 Rousuck maintained a luxurious apartment..furnished with handsome eighteenth-century English pieces (an octagonal rent table had been a gift from his friend Sonnenberg).

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online June 2022).

rentn.²

Brit.

/rɛnt/, U.S.

/rɛnt/

Forms: 1500s rente, 1500s– rent.

Origin: Formed within English, by conversion. Etymon: rent v.¹

Etymology: < rent v.¹ Compare later rend n.

a. The result of rending or tearing apart; a separation of parts produced by tearing; esp. a large tear in a garment or piece of fabric. Also figurative.

ΘΚΠ

the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > [noun] > a tear

rent1525

tearing1607

tear1611

rip1673

screed1728

schism1767

skeg1839

snag1854

1525 tr. H. von Brunschwig Noble Experyence Vertuous Handy Warke Surg. xxvii. sig. G.i/2 As he bloweth or kepeth his breth inwarde, then sheweth y^e moystnes comynge out thrughe y^e rente, and departynge of the bone.

1535 Bible (Coverdale) Matt. ix. 16 Then taketh he awaye the pece agayne from the garment, & the rent ys made greater.

1535 Bible (Coverdale) 2 Sam. vi. 8 Then was Dauid sory, because the Lorde had made soch a rente vpon Vsa, and he called the same place Perez Vsa vnto this daye.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Julius Caesar (1623) iii. ii. 173 See what a rent the enuious Caska made.

1623 W. Gouge Serm. Extent God's Provid. §15 The maine Summier..failed..more shiveringly and with a longer rent in the timber.

1683 in W. R. Scott Rec. Sc. Cloth Manufactory New Mills (1905) 46 That the rents and too near shearing of some cloth..be prevented in time coming.

1728 E. Young Love of Fame: Universal Passion (ed. 2) ii. 98 By night she went, And, while he slept, surpris'd the darling rent.

a1817 J. Austen Northanger Abbey (1818) II. xiv. 293 Only think..of my having got that frightful great rent in my best Mechlin so charmingly mended.

1846 A. Young Naut. Dict. Rents.., openings or cracks which take place in timber or planks when much exposed to the heat of the sun.

1858 G. MacDonald Phantastes 220 A dark curtain of cloud was lifted up, and a pale blue rent shone between its foot and the edge of the sea.

1878 J. Miller Songs Italy 64 A gust that made rents Thro' the yellow-sailed fishers.

1909 Chatterbox 298/2 The hem of your dress has a long rent in it.

1925 L. O'Flaherty Informer xvi. 161 Here and there a rent came in the dishevelled panorama of cloud and the sky appeared.

1993 S. Deshpande Binding Vine 177 I had thought, even if my sari is torn, I can wear it so that the rents don't show.

†b. one's rent comes in and variants: used with punning allusion to rent n.¹ Obsolete.

ΚΠ

1613 A. Nixon Straunge Foot-post f. 4^v His dublet is of the ragged ranke, with neuer a button on it, and his breeches are very faulty, they must be mended, I maruell he buyeth himselfe no better cloathes now his rents begin to come in so fast.

1616 W. Clerk Withals's Dict. Eng. & Lat. (1634) 166/1 Pannosus.., wee say in English ‘that hath his rent come in’.

1721 J. Kelly Compl. Coll. Scotish Prov. 322 They are sad Rents that come in with Tears. An Answer to them, who seeing your Cloaths ragged, say, Your Rents are coming in. Taken from the double signification of the two Words Rents and Tears.

1738 J. Swift Compl. Coll. Genteel Conversat. 56 I have torn my Petticoat with your odious Romping; my Rents are coming in.

†2. A breach, split, schism, or dissension in a society or party, or between two people. Obsolete.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > dissent > [noun] > division or lack of unity > a state or instance of

slit1390

breach1573

rent1580

rifta1609

split1729

split-up1878

1580 R. Parsons Brief Disc. f. 18 They beleeue, that to breake the Unitiye of the same Church, and to make anye rent or disunion in the same (which is the proper fault of Schismatykes,) is also damnable.

1608 J. Sylvester tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. (new ed.) ii. iv. 81 The rent Of th' Hebrew Tribes from th' Isheans Regiment.

1679 W. Penn Addr. Protestants i. 11 It occasions great Unkindnesses, Rents, Confusions and Divisions in Families.

1719 R. Wodrow Corr. (1843) II. 456 Lest our miserable rents be heightened, and unruly passions be provoked.

1822 J. Galt Sir Andrew Wylie III. xviii. 152 No to mak a rent and a rive o't a'thegither between us.

a. A cleft, a fissure; a deep narrow gorge or valley. Also: a narrow breach in a wall, etc.

ΘΚΠ

the world > the earth > land > landscape > low land > hole or pit > [noun] > chasm or cleft

chinec1050

earth-chinea1300

kinc1330

chimneyc1374

haga1400

riftc1400

refta1425

dungeonc1475

rupturec1487

gaping1539

rent1603

chasm1621

abrupt1624

hiulcitya1681

clove1779

score1790

strid1862

fent1878

the world > space > relative position > condition of being open or not closed > an opening or aperture > [noun] > opening or break in continuity > in a wall, hedge, fence, dike, etc.

sharda1000

gapc1380

slopc1386

slapc1425

intermission1624

gap-stead1644

gool1664

gateway1707

break1725

smeuse1819

rent1879

1603 H. Timberlake True & Strange Disc. 18 The Rocke..is slitte, like as it had bin cleft with wedges and beetles..: nor is the rent small, but so great in some places, that a man might easily hide himselfe in it.

1705 J. Addison Remarks Italy 283 I believe every one who sees this vast Rent in so high a Rock..must be satisfy'd that it was the Effect of an Earthquake.

1705 J. Addison Remarks Italy 469 From Lyons there is another great Rent, that runs across the whole Country.

1756 T. Amory Life John Buncle I. 318 Upon going into it, I found that it went straight on among the mountains, like a rent, or open crack.

1815 W. Wordsworth White Doe of Rylstone i. 17 Oft does the White Doe loiter there, Prying into the darksome rent.

1879 S. C. Bartlett Egypt to Palestine xxiv. 491 We..could easily have passed through the rents in the walls.

1905 Burlington Mag. June 205/1 The rent in the wall of the building may be noticed.

2008 Star (S. Afr.) (Nexis) 22 Mar. 6 The wind runs through the rent in the rock like a blizzard.

†b. Coal Mining. A cleavage plane in a coal seam. Obsolete. rare.

ΚΠ

1883 W. S. Gresley Gloss. Terms Coal Mining Rent (S[cotland].), see Back [defined as a plane of cleavage in coal, &c., having frequently a smooth parting and some sooty coal included in it].

†4. The act of tearing or rending; the fact of being torn. Obsolete. rare.

ΘΚΠ

the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > [noun]

tatteringc1380

rendinga1398

rifta1400

rentingc1405

ripping1463

direption1483

outriving1488

dilaceration1545

raving1553

dilaniation1569

divulsion1603

discission1628

discerption1645

tear1666

rent1753

shredding1954

1753 S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison IV. xxxvii. 255 In order to give him a hint, I pinned my apron to his coat, without considering who was likely to be a sufferer by it; and he, getting up, in his usual nimble way, gave it a rent, and then looked behind him with so much apprehension.

1832 W. Macgillivray Trav. & Researches A. von Humboldt v. 72 The Gulf of Cariaco owed its existence to a rent of the Continent.

1864 Ld. Tennyson Aylmer's Field in Enoch Arden, etc. 79 [He] read; and tore [the letter] As if the living passion symbol'd there Were living nerves to feel the rent.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).

rentn.³

Brit.

/rɛnt/, U.S.

/rɛnt/

Forms: 1900s– rent, 1900s– 'rent.

Origin: Formed within English, by clipping or shortening. Etymon: parent n.

Etymology: Shortened < parent n.

slang (chiefly U.S.).

A parent. Usually in plural.

ΘΚΠ

society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > [noun]

parent?a1425

old one1642

aged p.1861

aged parent1861

rent1968

1968 Current Slang (Univ. S. Dakota) 3 i. 11 Rents, parents.

1984 N.Y. Post 6 Jan. I gotta hit the rents for some bucks.

1992 Spy (N.Y.) Oct. 32/2 This spate of parental disappearances has caused organizational problems for the institutions concerned—and in many cases, collective sighs of relief (‘No 'rents! Party!’).

2004 J. R. Page Blessed Event xxvi. 270 We gotta get out of here anyway... The 'rents will be home soon, in from a hard day in the hardware business.

This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022).

rentadj.

Brit.

/rɛnt/, U.S.

/rɛnt/

Forms: Middle English– rent, 1800s runt (Irish English (Wexford)).

Origin: Formed within English, by conversion. Etymons: English rent , rend v.¹

Etymology: < rent, past participle of rend v.¹ Compare rent v.¹

Torn, pulled apart. Also in quot. c1480: †wearing torn or ragged clothing (obsolete).

ΘΚΠ

the world > textiles and clothing > clothing > wearing clothing > [adjective] > wearing ragged or tattered clothing

tattered1340

fitteredc1380

renta1382

raggedc1390

fortattereda1500

seam-rent1548

shake-ragged1550

tottered1570

beragged1611

betattered1618

shagged1622

tagged1631

duddy1718

the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > [adjective] > torn or torn apart

betorna1300

forpinchedc1325

torn1362

broken1377

tatteringc1380

renta1382

fortorn1496

lacerate1514

lacerated1556

rented1559

rived1581

dilaniated1597

dilacerate1602

discerpted1607

berent1608

rended1612

breacheda1649

dilacerated1650

vultured1946

a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1961) Josh. ix. 4 Olde sakkys..& rent [a1425 L.V. brokun; L. scissos] wyne botels.

?a1425 tr. Catherine of Siena Orcherd of Syon (Harl.) (1966) 381 (MED) Trowist þou for to come in þidir to þe weddyng feest wiþ þi foule, rent coote?

c1480 (a1400) St. Anastasia 186 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) II. 412 Fra þat place þan vald he ga, raggit & rent & blak alswa.

1582 R. Stanyhurst tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis i. 3 Crash do the rent tacklings.

1597 G. Harvey Trimming T. Nashe sig. C3^v I scorne such ragged rent-foorth speech.

1625 Mountagu in Buccleuch MSS (Hist. MSS Comm.) (1899) I. 262 Our rent country cannot be drawn up, but must be torn more [and] more.

1640 in W. Cramond Rec. Elgin (1903) I. 266 The skynneris old pinsell sumquhat hollit and rent.

1754 J. Cennick Shadows of Christ 20 His torn, mangled, and rent Body resembled the embroidered Robe.

1765 J. Ogilvie Solitude 33 From his rent heart now burst the pitying sigh.

1819 P. B. Shelley Rosalind & Helen 42 Leaves..like flowers delicate and fair, On its rent boughs.

1876 A. C. Swinburne Erechtheus 1345 Earth groans from her great rent heart.

1913 E. Y. Mullins Freedom & Authority in Relig. x. 352 Their written records are thus the fastenings which hold open the sides of the rent veil, not a veil obscuring God.

1994 M. Williamson Illuminata (new ed.) ii. i. 65 Prayer reweaves the rent fabric of the universe.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).

rentv.¹

Brit.

/rɛnt/, U.S.

/rɛnt/

Forms: Middle English rentte, Middle English–1500s rente, Middle English– rent.

Origin: A variant or alteration of another lexical item. Etymon: rend v.¹

Etymology: Variant of rend v.¹, after rent, its past participle (see rent adj.).

a. transitive. To rend, tear, pull apart or to pieces (a person or thing). Also: to make (a hole, etc.) by rending. Also reflexive and intransitive. Now Scottish and Jamaican.

ΘΚΠ

the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > tear [verb (transitive)]

tearc1000

renta1325

reavea1400

lacerate?a1425

raise?a1425

rivea1425

shearc1450

unsoundc1450

ranch?a1525

rechec1540

pilla1555

wreathe1599

intertear1603

shark1611

vulture1628

to tear at1848

spalt1876

the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > tear [verb (transitive)] > tear apart

to-loukc890

to-braidc893

to-tearc893

to-teec893

to-rendc950

to-breakc1200

to-tugc1220

to-lima1225

rivea1250

to-drawa1250

to-tosea1250

drawa1300

rendc1300

to-rit13..

to-rivec1300

to-tusec1300

rakea1325

renta1325

to-pullc1330

to-tightc1330

tirec1374

halea1398

lacerate?a1425

to-renta1425

yryve1426

raga1450

to pull to (or in) piecesc1450

ravec1450

discerp1483

pluck1526

rip1530

decerp1531

rift1534

dilaniate1535

rochec1540

rack1549

teasea1550

berend1577

distract1585

ream1587

distrain1590

unrive1592

unseam1592

outrive1598

divulse1602

dilacerate1604

harrow1604

tatter1608

mammocka1616

uprentc1620

divell1628

divellicate1638

seam-rend1647

proscind1659

skail1768

screeda1785

spret1832

to tear to shreds1837

ribbon1897

a1325 St. George (Corpus Cambr.) 56 in C. D'Evelyn & A. J. Mill S. Eng. Legendary (1956) 157 (MED) Þe swerdes ssolde is body rente & todrawe ato.

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 291 He..reseþ oute vnwarre on bestes þat passeþ and renteþ [L. dilaniat] hem..wiþ teeþ and with clawes.

c1430 (c1386) G. Chaucer Legend Good Women (Cambr. Gg.4.27) (1879) l. 843 Now what lyoun that be in this forest Myn body mote he renten.

c1475 Babees Bk. (Harl. 5086) (2002) i. 4 Nor thurhe clowyng your flesshe loke yee nat Rent.

1490 W. Caxton tr. Eneydos xxi. 76 I haue not rented, vyolated ne broken, the pyramyde of his faders sepulture.

1548 Hall's Vnion: Edward IV f. cxcj Rentyng his cote of armes, and breakyng his sword ouer his hed.

1560 Bible (Geneva) Ecclus. iii. 7 A time to rent, & a time to sowe.

1582 R. Stanyhurst tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis ii. 35 Hudge beams hee brusteth, strong bars fast ioyncted he renteth.

1613 S. Purchas Pilgrimage viii. iii. 746 To behold such monstrous Icie Ilands, renting themselues with terrour of their owne massines.

1683 Mem. Sir J. Melvil 47 Then she did rent her angry Letter.

1688 R. Holme Acad. Armory iii. 332/1 A Katherine Wheel..is a kinde of Wheel used to rent and tear in peeces grand Malefactors.

1732 J. Swift Market-hill Thorn in Misc. III. xv. 33 Thy confed'rate Dame..; Shall rent her Petticoats to Rags, And wound her Legs with every Bry'r.

1898 Shetland News 30 Apr. Da skurm o' da egg was rentid, an' I wis tryin' ta be carefil i' da takkin' o' him oot.

1952 in F. G. Cassidy & R. B. Le Page Dict. Jamaican Eng. (1967) 380/2 Just tease up the surface and put it in—it rents the earth.

1953 Caribbean Q. 3 i. 10 One kind of yam is called renter because it rents (that is, rends) a hole for itself.

1968 in Sc. National Dict. at Rent v. Per. 1950: Lend me your gullie till I rent this stick.

†b. transitive. To tear, pull at, scratch (one's face, hair, clothes, etc.) in grief or rage. Cf. rend v.¹ 3. Obsolete.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > emotion > anger > manifestation of anger > show anger [verb (transitive)] > tear the hair, face, or clothes

rendc1225

rentc1405

the mind > emotion > suffering > sorrow or grief > lamentation or expression of grief > other manifestations of sorrow > manifest sorrow [verb (transitive)] > tear (hair or clothes)

rendc1225

rentc1405

c1405 (c1390) G. Chaucer Melibeus (Hengwrt) (2003) §7 Whan Melibeus..seigh al this meschief, he lyk a mad man rentynge [c1430 Cambr. Gg.4.27 rendyng] his clothes gan to wepe and crye.

a1425 (?a1400) G. Chaucer Romaunt Rose (Hunterian) (1891) l. 324 Forto Rent in many place Hir clothis..As she that was fulfilled of ire.

1447 O. Bokenham Lives of Saints (Arun.) (1938) 2406 As a wood womman she ferd, Renttynge hir clothis.

1535 Bible (Coverdale) 2 Sam. iii. 31 Rente youre clothes, and gyrde sack cloth aboute you, and make lamentacion for Abner.

1608 J. Sylvester tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. (new ed.) i. v. 412 For, finding them by some fell Serpent slain, She rents her brest.

1657 J. Trapp Comm. Ezra x. 1 Of this we read not..but of other effects of his passion, as renting his garments.

c1678 in Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII. 430 My Golden hair I rent and tear like one outragious mad.

†c. transitive. To rend or tear, in various figurative senses. Obsolete (Scottish in later use).

ΚΠ

?a1475 (a1396) W. Hilton Scale of Perfection (Harl. 6579) i. xc. f. 60^v (MED) Tak it [sc. a stirring of pride] in þi mende ant rent it, brek it, and dispice it.

a1500 (?a1450) Gesta Romanorum (BL Add. 9066) (1879) 330 Lustes of the flessh, that..renten [L. dilacerantur] the soule.

1535 Bible (Coverdale) Joel ii. 12 Rente your hertes, & not youre clothes.

1581 G. Pettie tr. S. Guazzo Ciuile Conuersat. (1586) i. 27 b Those who..whet their tongues to rent a sunder..the good name of others.

c1595 Countess of Pembroke Psalme xlvi. 19 in Coll. Wks. (1998) II. 41 The voide of aire his voice doth rent.

c1614 W. Mure tr. Virgil Dido & Æneas ii. in Wks. (1898) I. 546 In diverse partes his dowbtsome minde he rents.

1681 S. Colvil Mock Poem i. 30 Romish craft and policie, Which rents the Dutch and us asunder.

a1699 J. Fraser Memoirs (1738) xii. 354 A seditious person, who did rent the Church of Christ, and was very active to make and keep up the schism.

1728 A. Ramsay Poems II. 175 Then cease, Great James, thy flowing Tears, Nor rent thy Soul in vain.

1747 S. Fielding Familiar Lett. David Simple II. 181 A Person, whose every Word and Look can..rent the Heart asunder.

1893 J. Barclay in R. Ford Harp Perthshire 62 Each Whig saint wad soon repent And straight recant his covenant, And rent it at the news.

†2. transitive. To tear out of, from, or off. Also with up. Also reflexive. Obsolete (British regional in later use).

ΘΚΠ

the world > movement > impelling or driving > pushing and pulling > push and pull [verb (transitive)] > pull > away > away, out, or off violently

rend?c1225

rendc1225

rasea1387

renta1398

renda1400

racea1413

rachec1425

rivec1440

rash1485

rush1485

ranch1579

a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. xi. ii. 572 Ventus..nat only he brekiþ vp stones and rentiþ vp [L. euellat] treen but also he disturbliþ heuene and erþe.

?1473 W. Caxton tr. R. Le Fèvre Recuyell Hist. Troye (1894) II. lf. 232^v His gowne was than anone rente of.

1477 W. Caxton in Earl Rivers tr. Dictes or Sayengis Philosophhres (1877) lf. 75^v If they be not wel plesyd wyth all..they wyth a penne race it out or ellys rente the leef out of the booke.

1535 Bible (Coverdale) Lev. xiii. 56 Then shall he rente it out of the clothe.

1539 Bible (Great) 1 Kings xi. 11 I wyll rent the kyngdome from the.

1627 G. Hakewill Apologie iii. i. 156 Wherein nature being but yet greene and growing, wee rent from her, and replant her branches.

1643 J. Burroughes Expos. Hosea (1652) i. 6 These ten Tribes renting themselves from the house of David, did rent themselves likewise from the true worship of God.

1718 J. Fox Wanderer 127 To seize upon the..Books, divest them of the..Ornaments, by renting off the..Plates.

1865 B. Brierley Irkdale I. i. 11 Rentin' a' ther clooas off ther backs wi' blackberryin'.

3. intransitive. To tear; to give way or separate by tearing or splitting. Also figurative. Now rare (British regional).

ΘΚΠ

the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > tear [verb (intransitive)]

renda1325

racec1390

sundera1393

shearc1450

ruska1525

rent1526

tear1526

to go abroad1568

raga1642

spalt1731

screeda1801

1526 W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection iii. sig. XXXiiii Doutles, his handes & fete dyd rent and teare, for the weyght of his blessed body.

1563 B. Googe Eglogs Epytaphes & Sonettes sig. B*.iiii My Harte with this began to rent.

1575 G. Gascoigne Hearbes in Wks. (1587) 143 My griefe, Whereof to tel my heart (oh) rents in twaine.

1598 A. M. tr. J. Guillemeau Frenche Chirurg. ii. iii. f. 10/2 Sometimes onlye the first table of the sculle breaketh and renteth.

1641 J. Jackson True Evangelical Temper ii. 139 The soule grows more divine when the tabernacle of the body begins to rent.

1695 R. Blackmore Prince Arthur ii. 60 Though solid Rocks touch'd with Compassion rent, The more obdurate Jew does not relent.

1777 Witty Exploits G. Buchanan (new ed.) iii. 18 The bell not renting, the priests were disgraced as impostors.

1812 P. Forbes Poems 24 My poor head's just rentin'.

1904 Eng. Dial. Dict. V. 88/1 When I waaked hup my yud ud ya-ack ready to rent.

1904 Eng. Dial. Dict. V. 88/1 He thought ‘the branches of his apple-tree would rent, they were so heavy’.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).

rentv.²

Brit.

/rɛnt/, U.S.

/rɛnt/

Forms: Middle English–1500s rente, Middle English– rent.

Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly formed within English, by conversion. Etymons: French renter ; rent n.¹

Etymology: Partly < Anglo-Norman and Middle French renter (French renter ) to provide (a person or institution) with revenues (13th cent.), to pay a certain portion of produce to a feudal lord (a1413; < rente rent n.¹), and partly directly < rent n.¹

†1. transitive. To provide (a person or institution) with revenues; to endow. Obsolete.

ΘΚΠ

society > law > transfer of property > settlement of property > settle (property) [verb (transitive)] > endow

worthOE

goodOE

dow1297

allowc1400

rentc1400

endowc1440

enduec1440

seizec1450

empossessc1500

revestc1500

indot1520

endote1528

dotatec1540

estate1609

instate1614

portion1663

vest1748

fortune1838

c1400 (a1376) W. Langland Piers Plowman (Trin. Cambr. R.3.14) (1960) A. viii. 35 (MED) Treuþe..bad hym..Releue religioun & renten [v.rr. rentyn, rente, rent, renteth] hem betere.

1485 W. Caxton tr. Thystorye & Lyf Charles the Grete sig. kvij^v/1 He founded, rented & releued many & dyuers chyrches.

a1500 Partenay (Trin. Cambr.) 5300 That place [he] augmented passingly..And rentid gretly to the house encresse.

a1550 (c1425) Andrew of Wyntoun Oryg. Cron. Scotl. (Wemyss) cxxvi. l. 442 Coldinghame than foundit he, And gert it richely rentit [a1500 Nero dowit] be.

2. transitive. To let (property) for rent or payment; to hire out to someone. Frequently with the person as indirect object. Also in extended use.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > selling > hiring or letting out > hire or rent out [verb (transitive)]

let909

hirec1384

rentc1447

to let out1526

locatec1580

wage1590

to farm outa1593

hackney1608

to set out1614

ablocate1623

job1726

to hire out1776

to set off1799

c1447 in Lincs. Notes & Queries (1921) 16 201 (MED) Item, to make ordenauns for the lordshyp off Wythum..hou yt hath be rentyd, whether yt ys better or wers than yt was.

1546 in W. Page Certificates Chantries County of York (1895) II. 323 In the same deanes handes, the Shepgate ther, not rented.

1564 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxf. (1880) 307 Sydelyng shalbe taken into the most profytt of this Cytye, and to be rentyd and letten also.

1613 I. F. Christes Bloodie Sweat 12 [Soldiers] For prey and spoyle aduenturing to rent Their liues & soules.

1730 A. Gordon tr. F. S. Maffei Compl. Hist. Anc. Amphitheatres 374 Our Community..rents out those Places which otherwise would be useless.

1737 J. Swift Let. to J. Barber 30 Mar. I confess there is no reason why an honourable Society should rent their estate for a trifle.

1779 G. W. Beekman Let. 21 Jan. in Beekman Mercantile Papers (1956) III. 1319 I Would Advise you Not to Sell That Place at Crambary Wheare Mr. Joseph Potts Lives as the Money Now Sells heare 8 and 10 Dollars for one hard Dollar But Rent it out if you Cant Rent it out Let it Lay.

1817 J. K. Paulding Lett. from South II. 64 Our guide..was ‘rented’ out to the King of England, by the legitimate Prince of Hesse Castle.

1895 Outing 27 210/1 A few residents, who eke out a meagre existence by renting boats to the occasional sportsman.

1903 N.Y. Sun 29 Nov. 26 We rent only new pianos of the most modern case design and of exquisite tone.

1952 E. Caldwell Sure Hand of God 81 Refuse to rent them another house.

1995 Independent 6 Feb. 23/1 Go into any one of the world's great museums or galleries and the chances are you will find a booth by the entrance renting out recorded tours of the museum on cassette.

3. transitive. To pay rent for (land, buildings, etc.); to take possession of, hold, occupy, or use, by payment of rent. Also intransitive.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > buying > hiring or renting > hire [verb (transitive)] > rent

to take upc1400

mail1425

farm1435

rent1530

rental1640

society > trade and finance > selling > hiring or letting out > hire or rent out [verb (transitive)] > let or lease land or house

to let (also put, set, etc.) (out ,forth) to (alsoin, for) farma1325

set1422

rent1530

farm1576

to farm out1576

vent1603

tenant1721

arrenta1754

1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 686/1 I rente, I paye farme hyre.

a1616 W. Shakespeare Measure for Measure (1623) ii. i. 231 If this law hold in Vienna ten yeare, ile rent the fairest house in it after three pence a Bay.

1622 J. Mabbe tr. M. Alemán Rogue i. 196 Such beggers as are so disposed, may rent certaine children.

1671 W. Berkeley in E. D. Neill Virginia Carolorum (1886) viii. 335 In Virginia about forty thousand persons..have come to settle and rent.

1716 J. Addison Drummer i. 1 I'll e'en marry Nell, and rent a bit of Ground of my own.

1763 T. Jefferson Corr. in Wks. (1859) I. 188 I do not know that I shall have occasion to return, if I can rent rooms in town to lodge in.

1848 Jrnl. Royal Agric. Soc. 9 i. 126 The most independent mode is for the cottager to rent a small garth or close.

1885 Law Rep.: Queen's Bench Div. 15 316 The truck in question was rented by the defendant..from the Midland Waggon Company.

1911 M. W. Ovington Half Man 44 Not only were they unable to rent in neighbourhoods suitable for respectable men and women.

1979 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 17 May 6/2 New Yorkers rent. They don't buy.

1991 A. Chaudhuri Strange & Sublime Addr. (1992) 149 He had been living in a bedsit he had rented as a student.

†4.

a. transitive. To pay (a sum) as tribute. Obsolete. rare.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > impost, due, or tax > tribute > pay tribute [verb (transitive)]

lastc1275

render1526

tribute1570

rent1613

1613 S. Purchas Pilgrimage vi. xi. 524 Muley Hamet..conquered Tombuto and Gago,..Laurence Madoc,..saith that Tombuto rented threescore quintals of gold.

b. transitive. To produce or bring in (a sum) as rent. Obsolete. rare.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > getting or making money > get or make money [verb (transitive)] > bring in (a revenue)

raise1389

levy1469

to pull in?1529

to fetch again1535

to bring in?1548

yield1573

produce1585

answer1596

in1609

render1687

net1758

rent1775

realize1777

earn1847

recoup1868

1775 Ann. Reg. 1774 150 The estate of Broughton which rents above 700l. per annum was..sold for 14,000l.

a. intransitive. In infinitive: to be rented, to let; available for rent. Cf. for rent at rent n.¹ 2e.Chiefly North American in 19th and 20th centuries.

ΚΠ

1715 Exeter Merc. 16 Sept. 5 To rent from Michaelmas next, a Justment of between Thirty and Forty Pounds a Year..haveing a large Orchard now in its Prime.

1789 World 6 June (advt.) Wanted. A House, to Rent or Purchase, with three good rooms on a floor.

1801 Morning Chron. 23 May 1/3 (advt.) Wanted. A Sugar-House to Rent, fit for the immediate reception of a Sugar-refiner.

1861 Chicago Tribune 26 May 1/8 To Rent—Very Low—Two Floors.

1883 Chicago Tribune 4 May 9/3 To Rent..Flat in elegant apartment building, 7 rooms.

1904 N.Y. Evening Post 18 June 2 The blossoming of ‘To rent’ signs on Broadway graphically shows the real situation.

1947 Chicago Daily News 25 Feb. 1/4 (caption) 4-room apartment to rent for $120.

2005 Loot 13 Dec. (Liverpool ed.) 28/1 (advt.) Property to rent... Flintshire, Buckley, 3 bed detached dorma bungalow.

b. intransitive. Chiefly North American. To be hired out for or let at a certain rate.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > buying > hiring or renting > rent [verb (intransitive)]

rent1784

society > trade and finance > selling > hiring or letting out > rent out [verb (intransitive)] > let at a certain rent

rent1815

1784 G. Washington Diary 15 Sept. (1925) II. 292 The Plantation on which Mr. Simpson lives rented well—viz. for 500 Bushels of Wheat.

1805 New-Eng. Palladium (Boston) 26 July 3/3 Two convenient Tenaments, for small families, that will rent at 12 pr. cent of what they will be sold for.

1815 L. Simond Jrnl. Tour Great Brit. I. 313 Arable land rents at £3 and £4, or even £6 an acre.

1827 P. Cunningham Two Years New S. Wales II. xxii. 74 The market-dues for this traffic renting, the present year, at 840l.

1868 A. S. Hewitt Production Iron & Steel (Paris Universal Exposition 1867) 39 House rent is cheap; a small, ordinary, but comfortable house, with a garden, renting for $16 per year in gold.

1974 Whig-Standard (Kingston, Ont.) 11 Jan. 7/2 The smallest ‘bedsitter’ apartment in central London rents for about $25 per week.

1992 Albuquerque (New Mexico) Monthly Oct. 37/2 (caption) The tux, suitable for any performance in Albuquerque's doubtful performing arts center, rents for $55 and sells for $425.

2005 T. Hall Salaam Brick Lane i. 6 One-bedroom flats were renting for silly money. ‘You won't get a shoebox in Dagenham on your budget, sir,’ one estate agent told me.

a. transitive. To charge (a person) rent; to impose a certain rent on (someone). Now rare.

ΘΚΠ

society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > hire or rent > rent (land or real property) > [verb (transitive)] > charge (one) rent

rent1881

1881 Times 13 Apr. 11/2 Any tenant, however lightly rented, will..have the strongest inducement to bring his landlord before the Court and to get the rent judicially fixed.

1894 Daily News 24 Apr. 6/5 It might deprive them of the power..to rent a man upon his own improvements.

1912 Times 16 Jan. 7/6 Under that Act the yearly tenants are heavily rented and have no security of tenure.

b. transitive. slang. To obtain money from (a person) by criminal means or in exchange for homosexual favours.

ΘΚΠ

society > morality > moral evil > licentiousness > unchastity > prostitution > [verb (transitive)] > obtain money from for homosexual favours

rent1895

the mind > possession > taking > extortion > practise extortion on [verb (transitive)]

ransom?a1425

to poll and pill1528

exact1534

bloodsuck?1541

extort1561

rack1576

flay1584

shave1606

wire-draw1616

punisha1626

sponge1631

squeeze1639

screwa1643

to screw up1655

bleed1680

torture1687

to screw down1725

to shake down1872

to squeeze (someone) until the pips squeak1918

to bleed white1935

rent1956

1895 O. Wilde in H. M. Hyde Trials of Oscar Wilde (1948) 118 He said, ‘Well, he says..that there is no use trying to “rent” you as you only laugh at us.’

1898 O. Wilde Let. 11 May (1962) 738 Bosie..is devoted to a dreadful little ruffian aged fourteen... Every time he goes home with Bosie he tries to rent him.

1956 C. Mackenzie Thin Ice xiii. 172 ‘I reckon you thought I was trying to rent Mr. Fortescue, eh?’ ‘To do what?’ I asked in astonishment at such an expression. ‘Get money out of him.’

1987 R. Harrison Season for Death iv. 64 He was being rented, and when the money ran out, he committed suicide.

2001 Independent 22 Dec. (Weekend Review section) 9/1 Bogarde as a married barrister; all knotted tie and defensive, arched right eyebrow, being ‘rented’ (as the phrase was in Wilde's time) over his subvert homosexuality.

Compounds

Prefixed to a noun preceded by the indefinite article (in the form rent-a- or renta-) in sense 3.

a. Designating the rental of the thing specified (originally and chiefly a car).

ΚΠ

1921 Chicago Central Business & Office Building Directory 531/1 Rent-a-Ford (Inc.) 1450 S. Michigan av.

1924 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 19 Feb. 503/1 The Rentacar Company, Toledo, Ohio..Rentacar U-Drive..Automobiles. Claims use since Aug. 6, 1921.

1935 Arch. Dermatol. & Syphilol. 32 78 A man..who owned a ‘rent-a-car’ business.

1963 Fortune Sept. 78 (advt.) Avis is only No. 2 in rent a cars. So we have to try harder.

1971 E. Afr. Standard (Nairobi) 13 Apr. 13/6 Rent-a-train and unit-train operations across North America would siphon more than 4 million tons of cargo from the Seaway.

1972 ‘G. Black’ Bitter Tea (1973) ii. 26 The key to my rentacar was in one of my damp pockets.

1976 National Observer (U.S.) 21 Aug. 7/1 Rent-a-horse service is available from a riding school next door.

1977 Rolling Stone 19 May 11/2 His is a typical L.A. rent-a-home.

1995 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 10 Aug. 12/1 They meet and bed down in a scabby rent-a-cabin place, where she says the proprietor wouldn't care if you took a ‘goddamn sheep in here’.

2007 Sci. Amer. (U.K. ed.) Jan. 28 Approach the rent-a-car booths, and you will see a sign taped to the countertop reminding customers not to pump E85..because they are not designed for it and it will ruin their engines.

b. In various extended and humorous (typically derogatory) uses, suggesting the temporary acquisition or instant availability of the person or thing specified, usually for an expedient or mercenary purpose; spec. (chiefly British) denoting a faction of regular, esp. violent, participants in public protests, in rent-a-crowd, rent-a-mob, etc. See also rent-a-cop n., rent-a-quote adj. and n.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > possession > acquisition > acquisition or loss [phrase] > easily obtainable

up for grabs1945

rent-a-crowd1961

1961 Daily Tel. 21 Dec. 8/6 Dictators!!! When you liberate a territory or mop up a colonialist enclave, are you disappointed and upset to receive only a tepid welcome from the people? Let rentacrowd help you! We can supply cheering crowds for all occasions.

1964 C. Driver Disarmers x. 233 The phenomenon which Peter Simple of the Daily Telegraph cruelly christened ‘Rentacrowd’: London's instantly available progressive claque ready..to demonstrate on a whole range of causes.

1970 Guardian 27 Oct. 11/5 The strategy was based upon a tactic which Oxford students called Rentamob..a hard core of rioters who could turn a demonstration into a confrontation.

1976 Times 27 Jan. 4/1 Squatters in London are reported to be using children in a ‘rent-a-kid’ system, as a means of being rehoused.

1977 New Society 7 July 15/1 Trouble was caused not by ordinary workers, still less by management, but by Rent-a-picket... ‘There's always the Rent-a-crowd element that hangs on to strikes.’

1980 Wall St. Jrnl. 6 Aug. 1 (heading) Rent-a-judge... California is allowing its wealthy litigants to hire private jurists.

1989 Q Dec. 111/2 Cray is one of the rent-a-celebs that show up here to prod E.C. [sc. Eric Clapton] into some of his most committed performances of the '80s.

1997 Big Issue 9 June 18/1 He's maturing into the British version of Christopher Walken: a convincing rent-a-psycho.

2002 Prospect Dec. 14/2 Soviet style mass rallies with rent-a-crowd supporters bussed in from the provinces.

2006 Time Out N.Y. 14 Sept. 122/4 He personally staged a ‘rent-a-coup’ that landed himself and dozens of would-be accomplices in a Zimbabwean prison.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).

n.¹?a1160

n.²1525

n.³1968

adj.a1382

v.¹a1325

v.²c1400

单词	rent
释义	rentn.¹ Brit. /rɛnt/, U.S. /rɛnt/ Forms: Middle English rennt, Middle English renþe, Middle English renth, Middle English–1500s rentt, Middle English–1500s rentte, Middle English–1600s rente, Middle English– rent, 1900s– rint (Irish English (northern)); Scottish pre-1700 rente, pre-1700 rint, pre-1700 wrent, pre-1700 1700s– rent. Origin: A borrowing from French. Etymons: French rent, rente. Etymology: < Anglo-Norman rent, rennt (also rend ), Anglo-Norman and Old French, Middle French, French rente (also rende ) return payment, restitution (early 12th cent. in Anglo-Norman), tax, toll, tribute, or similar charge to be regularly paid for the use of movable or immovable goods (c1119 in Anglo-Norman), regular revenue from certain goods (c1155), tribute, exaction (c1170 or earlier in Anglo-Norman), rented house, property producing rent (c1300 or earlier in Anglo-Norman), interest (a1392) < post-classical Latin rendita (12th cent.; compare earlier renda (9th cent.); corresponding to classical Latin reddita ), feminine of past participle of rendere (see render v.). Compare post-classical Latin renta (from 12th cent. in British sources; from 13th cent. in continental sources), Old Occitan renda, Catalan renda (1259), Spanish renta (a1215; earlier as renda (1131)), Portuguese renda (1162), Italian rendita (a1348). Compare also Old Frisian rente, Middle Dutch rente (Dutch rente), Middle Low German rente, Middle High German rente, rent (German Rente), Old Icelandic renta, Old Swedish ränta (Swedish ränta), Old Danish rente (Danish rente). †1. a. Chiefly in plural. A source or item of revenue or income; a separate piece of property, esp. land, yielding a certain return to the owner. Obsolete. ΘΚΠ the mind > possession > possessions > [noun] > real or immovable property > land > land yielding income rent?a1160 livelihood1438 livinga1450 stock1552 livelihead1590 investment property1832 ?a1160 Anglo-Saxon Chron. (Laud) (Peterborough contin.) anno 1137 Martin abbot..wrohte on þe circe & sette þarto landes & rentes. ?c1225 (?a1200) Ancrene Riwle (Cleo. C.vi) (1972) 129 Purses. baggen & packes beoð..alle eorðliche weolen & worldliche rentes [a1250 Nero renten]. c1325 (c1300) Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 7615 (MED) Vnneþe was þer eni hous in al normandie..Þat king willam ne feffede..Mid londes oþer mid rentes þat hii abbeþ here an honde. c1390 Swete Ihesu Now (Vernon) l. 334 in C. Horstmann Yorkshire Writers (1896) II. 20 Ihesu, Beute ne aske I þe nouȝt..Londes ne Rentes, deore bouȝt, But hertly loue and clene þouȝt. c1405 (c1375) G. Chaucer Monk's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 213 God to thy fader lente Glorie and honour, regne, tresor, rente. a1450 (c1410) H. Lovelich Hist. Holy Grail xlvi. 13 (MED) Vppon him wolde he werren ful pleyn And distroyen bothe Rente And lond. 1481 W. Caxton tr. Myrrour of Worlde i. v Their Rentes, their tresours or other thinge wherin they delyte them. a1500 (a1400) Sir Cleges (Adv.) (1930) 93 (MED) He thowȝt..howe he hade his maners sold And his renttis wyde. 1523 Ld. Berners tr. J. Froissart Cronycles I. ccclxxix. 635 This Philip..was abydynge in his mothers house, and lyued honestely on theyr rentes. 1578 in D. Masson Reg. Privy Council Scotl. (1880) 1st Ser. III. 48 Of unproffitabill alienationis..of thair rentis and patrimony in thair les ages. 1611 T. Coryate Crudities sig. Mm3 A goodly Bishoprick..which he endowed with most ample rents and reuenewes. a1616 W. Shakespeare Henry V (1623) iv. i. 240 What are thy Rents? what are thy Commings in? View more context for this quotation 1653 D. Dickson Brief Explic. First 50 Psalms xlix. 336 Those who are not only rich, but also honourable, and Lords of great rents, fair lands, houses and heritages. 1724 T. Townsend tr. A. de Solis Hist. Conquest Mexico iv. xv. 218 His Majesty bestow'd many Favours upon Don Pedro, giving him an Estate and considerable Rents in New Spain. b. Revenue, income. Also figurative. Obsolete. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > [noun] renta1225 winningsc1380 profita1382 profity1432 revenue1433 fruitc1450 luck?a1475 improvement1478 apports1481 penny-rent1502 importance1505 filthy lucre1526 rentally1534 entrataa1538 a quick return1583 incoming1596 entratec1599 advenue1600 coming in1600 income1601 intrade1604 intrado1609 ingate1621 audit1625 increment1631 indraught1633 velvet1901 a1225 (c1200) Vices & Virtues (1888) 77 Ða riche menn ðe laneð here eihte uppe chierches and uppe ða chirch-landes..oðe uppe oðre þinges þe rentes ȝiueð. c1225 (?c1200) St. Juliana (Bodl.) 28 (MED) Maximien luuede an eleusium..Akennet of heh cun & swiðe riche of rente. c1275 (?a1216) Owl & Nightingale (Calig.) l. 1767 Hwi nulleþ hi nimen heom to rede..For teche heom of his wisdome An ȝiue him rente auale stude. 1340 Ayenbite (1866) 37 (MED) Þe ontrewe reuen, prouos, and bedeles..wyþdraȝeþ þe rentes of hire lhordes. a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 27248 (MED) To þe preist at frain it feres O symony, of couaites..Or o wasting of his rent. 1483 W. Caxton tr. Caton G iv Thou oughtest..to holde thyn estate after thy rente and reuenue. a1500 Liber Pluscardensis (Marchm.) (1877) I. 388 Scho has assythit Deed of all his rentis. a1513 W. Dunbar Poems (1998) I. 126 Rewthe, the frute of nobilnes, Off womanheid the tresour and the rent. 1535 W. Stewart tr. H. Boece Bk. Cron. Scotl. (1858) 28122 Greit reward richt oft to thame he gaif..Of gold and siluer, and of vther rent. 1549 R. Crowley Voyce Laste Trumpet sig. Avii Thou..sekest euer for to fynde. Wayes to encrease thyne yerely rent. 1635 E. Pagitt Christianographie (1636) iii. 43 These Novell Devices brought in a new Rent and great profit to the Clergy. 1687 A. Lovell tr. J. de Thévenot Trav. into Levant i. 166 Palm-Trees, which yield some rent to the Monks. 1711 J. Swift Argument abolishing Christianity in Misc. Prose & Verse 162 To allow each of them such a Rent, as..would make them Easy. 1783 E. Burke Speech Fox's E. India Bill in Wks. (1815) IV. 86 Territories yielding a rent of one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year. c. Recompense, reward; a privilege accorded to a person. Obsolete. rare. ΘΚΠ the world > action or operation > behaviour > reciprocal treatment or return of an action > reward or a reward > [noun] shipec1000 rightOE yielda1200 hire?c1225 foryieldinga1300 tithinga1300 rentc1300 lowera1325 guerdon?a1366 recompensationa1382 retributionc1384 reward?1387 reguerdona1393 rewardon?a1400 mercimonyc1400 pensionc1400 remunerationc1400 recompensec1425 wardonc1480 salary1484 premiationa1513 requital1556 repayment1561 requite1561 renumeration1572 remisea1578 lieu1592 reguerdonment1599 gratulation1611 muneration1611 requit1786 c1300 (?c1225) King Horn (Cambr.) (1901) 914 (MED) Sire king, ȝef me mi rente. a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 19593 (MED) I[t] fell saint petre als for rent To call men vnto amendment. J. Metham Amoryus & Cleopes (1916) 1560 (MED) Orphe..hys wyf receyuyd ayen for the rent Off hys musycal melody. d. The produce of a crop, fruit. Obsolete. rare. ΚΠ ?c1335 (a1300) Land of Cokaygne 86 in W. Heuser Kildare-Gedichte (1904) 147 Þer beþ iiii. willis in þe abbei: Of triacle and halwei, Of baum and ek piement, Euer ernend to riȝt rent. a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Douce 370) (1850) 4 Kings viii. 6 Restore to hyre alle thingis that ben hyres, and alle the rentes [a1425 L.V. fruytis; L. reditus] of feeldis. a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1963) 1 Kings viii. 15 Ȝoure cornys & þe rentis of vynes he schal tiþen. e. Scottish. Profit, value. Obsolete. rare. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > profit > [noun] earningeOE issuea1325 lucrec1380 lucre of gainc1386 return1419 feracityc1420 revenue1427 vantagec1430 afframing1440 revenue1440 availc1449 proventc1451 provenuec1487 rent1513 fardel1523 chevisance1535 gains1546 commodity1577 proceed1578 increasal1601 benefit1606 endowment1615 gaininga1631 superlucration1683 profit1697 bunce1706 making1837 bunt1851 plunder1851 yield1877 recovery1931 earner1970 1513 G. Douglas in tr. Virgil Æneid i. Prol. 82 Set this my werk full feble be of rent. 2. †a. A tax, toll, tribute, or similar charge levied by or paid to a person. to hold one's rent: to succeed in paying a charge at a specified time. Also figurative. Obsolete.See also black rent n. at black adj. and n. Compounds 1e(a). ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > impost, due, or tax > tribute > [noun] gavelc725 trewagec1275 rentc1300 tribute1340 port1350 scat1502 tribute-money1526 mise1535 vectigal1535 livery1577 mise-money1617 c1300 St. Thomas Becket (Laud) 390 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary (1887) 117 He axede atþe laste Eche ȝere ane certeyne rente þoruȝ al engelond wel faste. c1325 (c1300) Chron. Robert of Gloucester (Calig.) 5778 (MED) Þre ȝer he huld is rente, ac þe verþe was bihinde. c1400 (?a1300) Kyng Alisaunder (Laud) (1952) 4142 (MED) He is comen to parlement, Forto ȝelde þee þi rent. c1405 (c1390) G. Chaucer Man of Law's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 1044 Deeth..taketh of heigh and logh his rente. a1450 (a1400) Ten Commandments (Bodl.) in T. Arnold Sel. Eng. Wks. J. Wyclif (1871) III. 87 Þe Cherche, þat sellen men leve to synne..for an anuel rente bi ȝere. a1450–1509 (?a1300) Richard Coer de Lyon (A-version) (1913) 4056 (MED) Kyng R. hys ax in hond he hente, And payde Sarezynys here rente. a1500 (?a1410) J. Lydgate Churl & Bird (Lansd.) 157 in Minor Poems (1934) ii. 475 Yiff thou wilt..sofre me gon frely..Without raunsom or any othir rent. 1535 W. Stewart tr. H. Boethius Bk. Cron. Scotl. (1858) III. 550 Aganis this erle all Holland did rebell And of thair rentis wald no ansuer mak. 1659 P. Heylyn Examen Historicum ii. 182 That every Minister..may sue for the Recovery of his Tythes, Rents and other duties. 1703 W. Burkitt Expos. Notes New Test. Mark vi. 13 Rather than pay the Constant Rent of Daily Relief to their poor Parents. 1787 A. Young Jrnl. 19 Aug. in Travels (1792) I. 44 Auch..is almost without manufactures or commerce and is supported chiefly by the rents of the country. But they have many of the noblesse in the province, too poor to live here. b. A periodical payment made by a tenant to an owner or landlord for the use of land or buildings. Also: the sum paid for the hire of machinery, etc., for a certain time.†rent of assize: see assize n. 2b. See also ground rent n., quit-rent n., rack rent n., peppercorn rent n. at peppercorn n. and adj. Compounds 2, petty rent n. at petty adj. and n. Compounds 1a. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > hire or rent > rent (land or real property) > [noun] gavela1121 rentc1300 rental1441 gavelagec1450 rentage1633 mail duty1638 galea1687 wayleave1729 society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > hire or rent > [noun] hirec1000 layc1175 wage1447 rent1891 c1300 St. Thomas Becket (Laud) 398 in C. Horstmann Early S.-Eng. Legendary (1887) 118 (MED) A taillage þov taxt fram ȝer to ȝer..And axest it for a certeine rente. c1350 Apocalypse St. John: A Version (Harl. 874) (1961) 107 (MED) Non ne shal haue power to ȝiue rentes ne to resceyue. a1400 (a1325) Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) 28438 (MED) Toll and tak, and rent o syse, Wit-halden i haue wit couettise. c1440 Sir Degrevant (Thornton) (1949) 139 (MED) His husbandes þat gaffe hym rent Heryede in plighte. 1480–1 in Hist. MSS Comm.: 10th Rep.: App. Pt. V: MSS Marquis of Ormonde &c. (1885) 316 in Parl. Papers (C. 4576-I) XLII. 1 The rennt of the nexte terme..shall be arrestid in the tenannts hands. 1560 J. Daus tr. J. Sleidane Commentaries f. lx Some of them pay more rent yerely than theyr Fermes be worth. 1581 T. Lupton 2nd Pt. Too Good to be True sig. E^v Doe they enhaunce their Rents with you? 1607 J. Norden Surueyors Dialogue ii. 49 I be Lord of many Mannors, and no doubt I receiue rentes of euery of these kindes. a1652 R. Brome City Wit ii. ii. sig. B6^v, in Five New Playes (1653) A poor Doctor of Physick..has paid a quarters rent of his house afore-hand. 1707 J. Mortimer Whole Art Husbandry (1721) I. 391 They commonly allow a Farm to make three Rents, one for the Landlord, one for Charges, and one for the Tenant to live on. 1711 London Gaz. No. 4902/4 The Ground Lease expires at Christmas... Rent reserv'd 4l. 16s. per Annum. 1736 J. Murray Lett. (1901) 24 I have got a good convenient house on rent. 1766 W. Blackstone Comm. Laws Eng. II. 42 Rents of assise are the certain established rents of the freeholders and copyholders of a manor, which cannot be departed from or varied. 1820 J. Gifford Compl. Eng. Lawyer 411 Where the rent is a large sum, the tenant should have it in readiness before sunset. 1865 S. Baring-Gould Bk. Were-wolves xiv. 239 Each tenant pays no rent for his cottage and patch of field, but is bound to work a fixed number of days for his landlord. 1891 Spectator 18 July 100/2 They include the ‘rent’ of the engine and trucks, the cost of fuel, and the pay of engine-driver. 1987 E. Feinstein Captive Lion ix. 207 By September they were seriously behind with the rent. 1996 Which? Guide to starting your own Business (new ed.) ii. 39 The plant, equipment and vehicles you need are bought by the lessor (who may be a finance company) and then leased to you for an agreed rent. c. A piece of property for which rent is charged or paid; an apartment for rent; (in plural) a number of tenements or houses let out to others, frequently named after the proprietor (now archaic and historical). Also in figurative context (in quot. a1631). Now U.S. regional (New England). ΘΚΠ the mind > possession > possessions > [noun] > real or immovable property > property which is let or re-let rent1422 relet1861 sublet1928 society > law > legal right > right of possession or ownership > tenure of property > a legal holding > [noun] > leasehold land or tenement tenantry1385 take1392 rent1422 tenantryc1450 tack?a1500 tenancy1579 tenanty1612 rentage1892 1422 in R. W. Chambers & M. Daunt Bk. London Eng. (1931) 125 (MED) Le preuy in Richard Osberne Rent endited for grete stenche that commyth out in-to the hye way of fylthe, the which is noyance to the peopl. 1467 in Manners & Househ. Expenses Eng. (1841) 341 (MED) It was agreid..that my said mastyr schal paye hym for the rente that the [read he] rentythe to hym..wyche drawyth be yere iiij marc. 1491–2 in H. Littlehales Medieval Rec. London City Church (1905) 175 Reparacyons of the new howse in the cherche Rentes. 1517–18 in H. Littlehales Medieval Rec. London City Church (1905) 299 Ress' of Thomas Clayton for that Remayned in his hondes of the byldyng of Nasynges Renttes next baattes howse xjs. iijd. 1550 R. Crowley Way to Wealth sig. Aiii^v Whole allyes, whole rentes, whole rowes, yea whole streats. a1631 J. Donne Poems (1635) 91 Which hath divided heaven in tenements, And with..theeves, and murderers stuft his rents So full. 1732 Acc. Workhouses 21 Another workhouse..belonging to the liberty of Hatton-Garden, Saffron-hill, and Ely-Rents. 1847 J. S. Coyne How to settle Accts. with Laundress 6 You used not to wear such waistcoats as that when you lived in Fuller's Rents. a1902 S. Butler Way of All Flesh (1903) lv. 254 A rag and bottle merchant in Birdsey's Rents. 1913 Dial. Notes 4 1 Rent, tenement. ‘Have you found a rent yet?’ 1926 Dial. Notes 5 388 Rent,..apartment or rentable house. 1950 Portland (Maine) Press Herald 4 Sept. 2 (advt.) Perhaps it's a rent or a tenant that you have been wanting. 1977 Kennebec Jrnl. (Augusta, Maine) 14 May 15/1 As anyone who has gone apartment hunting in the last few years knows it has become harder to find a rent in Augusta. 1993 P. Ackroyd House of Dr. Dee (1994) i. 35 He lived in a rambling tenement in the Bishop of London's rents. 1998 in Dict. Amer. Regional Eng. (2002) IV. 557/2 It sounded odd to me when I first moved here... People around here would say, ‘She's looking for a rent.’ d. (a) Money, cash, esp. that acquired by criminal activity or in exchange for homosexual favours; (b) (hence in extended use) a rent boy; rent boys collectively (see rent boy n. at Compounds 2). ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > money > [noun] silverc825 feec870 pennieseOE wortheOE mintOE scata1122 spense?c1225 spendinga1290 sumc1300 gooda1325 moneya1325 cattlec1330 muckc1330 reasona1382 pecunyc1400 gilt1497 argentc1500 gelta1529 Mammon1539 ale silver1541 scruff1559 the sinews of war1560 sterling1565 lour1567 will-do-all1583 shell1591 trasha1592 quinyie1596 brass1597 pecuniary1604 dust1607 nomisma1614 countera1616 cross and pilea1625 gingerbreada1625 rhinoa1628 cash1646 grig1657 spanker1663 cole1673 goree1699 mopus1699 quid1699 ribbin1699 bustle1763 necessary1772 stuff1775 needfula1777 iron1785 (the) Spanish1788 pecuniar1793 kelter1807 dibs1812 steven1812 pewter1814 brad1819 pogue1819 rent1823 stumpy1828 posh1830 L. S. D.1835 rivetc1835 tin1836 mint sauce1839 nobbins1846 ochre1846 dingbat1848 dough1848 cheese1850 California1851 mali1851 ducat1853 pay dirt1853 boodle?1856 dinero1856 scad1856 the shiny1856 spondulicks1857 rust1858 soap1860 sugar1862 coin1874 filthy1876 wampum1876 ooftish1877 shekel1883 oil1885 oof1885 mon1888 Jack1890 sploshc1890 bees and honey1892 spending-brass1896 stiff1897 mazuma1900 mazoom1901 cabbage1903 lettuce1903 Oscar Asche1905 jingle1906 doubloons1908 kale1912 scratch1914 green1917 oscar1917 snow1925 poke1926 oodle1930 potatos1931 bread1935 moolah1936 acker1939 moo1941 lolly1943 loot1943 poppy1943 mazoola1944 dosh1953 bickies1966 lovely jubbly1990 scrilla1994 society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > [noun] > money gained dishonestly rent1823 society > morality > moral evil > licentiousness > unchastity > prostitution > [noun] > male prostitute sellary1598 spintry1598 varlet1609 whore1609 prostitute1761 renter1893 trade1919 pimp1942 call boy1943 rent1967 rent boy1969 tart1976 1823 ‘J. Bee’ Slang Rent, collect the, to obtain money upon the highway. 1828 W. T. Moncrieff Tom & Jerry i. 20 Blunt, my dear boy, is..to be able to flash the screens—sport the rhino—shew the needful—post the pony—nap the rent... Money, money, is your universal good. 1925 E. Fraser & J. Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 242 Rent, money: cash. 1936 ‘J. Curtis’ Gilt Kid xii. 127 I haven't done anything since I've come out of the nick and the old rent's running a bit low. 1967 A. Wilson No Laughing Matter iii. 306 I've been rent myself once... I just gave what they paid me for. 1977 Gay News 24 Mar. 15/3 A word of warning about the Strand Bar in Hope Street... It's rough and some of the people there are rent. 2003 Attitude Jan. 146/1 Have sex with some rent, watch them leave as soon as they've pocketed the dosh and die a horrible lonely death. e. Originally North American. for rent: (available) to be rented; to let. Cf. rent v.² 5a. ΚΠ 1827 Western Monthly Rev. May 61 Emigrants complain, that there are no houses for rent. 1852 N.Y. Herald 6 May 6/6 The meeting house was put up for rent to the highest bidder. 1879 F. R. Stockton Rudder Grange i. 8 It was not an easy thing to find a canal-boat. There were none advertised for rent. 1904 Charlotte (N. Carolina) Observer 27 May 4 (advt.) For Rent... First class dwelling, No. 907 Elizabeth Avenue. 1934 Times 7 June 25/1 (advt.) Perfect small house for rent. 1981 Beautiful Brit. Columbia Summer 31/2 Boats are for rent at many of these locations and fishing advice is available. 2005 N.Y. Mag. 14 Mar. 132/2 (advt.) ResortQuest has 730 properties for rent on the Outer Banks. †3. a. Scottish. Interest. Chiefly in on rent: at interest. Obsolete. rare. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > financial dealings > moneylending > [adverb] > at interest at, to, on, upon usurya1400 to use1598 upon usea1607 at use1609 on rent1609 1609 J. Skene Regiam Majestatem i. f. 52^v Ane thing lattin and receaved to hyre for rent and profite. a1611 Burgh Rec. Stirling (1888) I. 126 The soume of ane hundrethe merkis..to be imployed be the toun on rent to the help of the ministrie of this burghe. b. In France: a sum paid as interest upon a public debt. Obsolete. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > financial dealings > moneylending > [noun] > moneylending at interest > interest > other kinds of interest rent1653 1653 Mercurius Politicus No. 137. 2179 The King's necessities were great, and therefore forced to detain those Rents, for the paying of his Forces. 1689 N. Luttrell Diary in Brief Hist. Relation State Affairs (1857) I. 605 He [sc. the King] hath published an edict for a new creation of rents upon the town house of Paris. 1697 D. Defoe Ess. Projects 60 The Bank hereby becomes the Publick Stock of the Town, something like what they call the Rents of the Town-House in France. 1759 Hist. War in Ann. Reg. 55 (note) The French court have stopped payment of the following public debts, viz. 1. The three kinds of rents created on the posts. 1815 Observer 19 Mar. 2/4 Oudinot's corps, which were formerly Les Gardes Imperiales, but now Les Gardes du Roi, et de Royaume, are staunch. Funds rose to-day considerably. Rents which had been as low as 96, were done at 69-50. 4. Economics. The surplus payment to a factor of production (e.g. land, labour, etc.) over and above what is necessary to keep it in its present use; rent of ability: such payment earned by a person's individual skill or ability. Cf. economic rent n. at economic n. and adj. Compounds.David Ricardo is generally considered the first rigorous user of the concept, but he does not appear to use a concise and unambiguous definition of it in his works (cf. Princ. Polit. Econ. (1817) ii. 49 for a loosely worded definition). ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > profit > [noun] > regarded as result of ability rent1929 1662 W. Petty Treat. Taxes 24 When this man hath subducted his seed out of the proceed of his Harvest, and also, what himself hath both eaten and given to others in exchange for Clothes, and other Natural necessaries; that the remainder of Corn, is the natural and true Rent of the Land for that year. 1777 J. Anderson Enquiry Nature Corn-laws 45 It is not, however, the rent of the land that determines the price of its produce, but it is the price of that produce which determines the rent of the land. 1815 T. R. Malthus Inquiry Nature & Progress Rent 1 The rent of land may be defined to be that portion of the value of the whole produce which remains to the owner of the land, after all the outgoings belonging to its cultivation..have been paid, including the profits of the capital employed, estimated according to the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock at the time being. 1848 J. S. Mill Princ. Polit. Econ. I. ii. xvi. 500 The rent, therefore, which any land will yield, is the excess of its produce, beyond what would be returned to the same capital if employed on the worst land in cultivation. 1879 A. Marshall & M. P. Marshall Econ. Industry ii. xii. 144 Rent of rare natural abilities is a specially important element in the incomes of business men. 1905 G. B. Shaw Irrational Knot p. xv There is an important economic factor, first analyzed by an American economist (General Walker), and called rent of ability. 1929 S. E. Thomas Elem. Econ. (ed. 4) xvii. 261 We may say that there is a rent element in both profits and wages, and that this element depends on the natural or acquired gifts of the employer or worker concerned. Where the differential payment is due to differences of ability, it may be suitably and correctly described as a rent of ability. 1930 Times 6 May 12/2 The Fabian Society formerly pleaded for the rent of ability, but the plea fell on deaf ears. 1993 J. Kay Found. Corporate Success i. ii. 30 Added value (called rent or super normal profit by economists) is a concept with a long intellectual history. Compounds C1. a. Appositive, in the sense ‘that is given as rent’. rent barley n. now historical and rare ΚΠ a1576 L. Nowell Vocabularium Saxonicum (1952) 35/1 Bereȝefol, rent barlye. a1765 C. Parkin Blomefield's Ess. Topogr. Hist. Norfolk (1775) V. 984 Rent barley per ann. 6 quarters, lacking half a bushel, at 8s. the quarter. 1994 C. Oestmann Lordship & Community ii. vii. 137 These items were not the result of his own farming efforts, but partly rent payments in kind, such as 100 combs of barley which he received as rent barley. † rent-beeves n. [ < rent n.¹ + the plural of beef n.] Obsolete ΚΠ 1612 J. Davies Discouerie Causes Ireland 17 Such charges as were made vppon Oneale, for Rent-Beeues. 1655 T. Fuller Church-hist. Brit. vi. 298 As for rent-beeves, sheep, pullein, &c. reserved on their leases, Tenants both payed them the more easily, as growing on the same, and the more cheerfully, because at any time they might freely eat their full share thereof, when repairing to their Land-lords bountiful table. 1786 C. Vallancey Collectanea de Rebus Hibern. (ed. 2) I. iii. i. ii. 396 The kings of England, even as late as the thirteenth century, were often paid in the like old coin of beeves, which were thence called rent-beeves. † rent capon n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1616 J. Deacon Tobacco Tortured 78 Their extraordinarie rent-corne, rent-coales, rent-capons, and I wot not what. a1643 W. Cartwright Ordinary (1651) v. iii. 79 To screw your wretched Tenants up To th' utmost farthing, and then stand upon The third Rent Capon. a1765 C. Parkin Blomefield's Ess. Topogr. Hist. Norfolk (1775) V. 984 Rent barley per ann. 6 quarters, lacking half a bushel, at 8s. the quarter, 47s. 6d, rent capons 17s. rent hens 5, 2s. 6d. with feed for 400 and a half of sheep. rent corn n. ΚΠ 1527 Statutes Prohemium Iohannis Rastell (new ed.) f. cciiii^v In the same statute..ye shall se..that rent corne in graynges and all mouable goodes except rydyng gere raymente & vtensylles of housholde shall be callyd issues. 1580 T. Tusser Fiue Hundred Pointes Good Husbandrie (new ed.) f. 9 Rent corne to be paid, for a reasnable rent. 1642 Magna Ch. in E. Coke 2nd Pt. Inst. Lawes Eng. viii Work-days, rent cummin, rent corn, etc...called Redditus nigri, black maile, that is, black rents. 1771 J. Shebbeare Authentic Narr. Oppress. Islanders Jersey I. viii. 237 The rent corn, to the carriage of which the inhabitants were liable, was to be carried to the castle within three weeks before Christmas. 1802 W. Clark Let. 2 Mar. in Dear Brother (2002) 44 Col Armstrong has Soled all the rent Corn at Miamis. 1895 Freeborn (Minnesota) County Standard 31 July 1/4 I will hire men in the fall..and crib my rent corn. 1992 P. T. Stroud Thomas Say xiv. 240 The tenant farmers brought in precious little ‘rent corn’, complaining that cattle broke through their fences and ate the crop. † rent egg n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1366 in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1898) I. 45 De 240 Rent Egges, nil. 1649 Surv. Manor Canon Pyon 40 And the surplusage of the sum the Bailiff hath for gathering the same and fourteen of the rent Hens and three score of the rent Eggs. † rent-goose n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1340 in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1898) I. 37 (MED) In 40 auc. quarum 14 Renteges, 5 s. 5 d. † rent-hen n. [compare post-classical Latin gallina rentalis (1450 in a British source)] Obsolete ΚΠ 1345 in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1898) I. 41 (MED) Preter 50 Renthennes, 24 s. 1431–2 in J. Raine Inventories & Acct. Rolls Benedictine Houses Jarrow & Monk-Wearmouth (1854) 98 Pro rentehennes et wodsilver pro Jarowe et Monketon, xxijd. ?1577 Misogonus iii. i, in R. W. Bond Early Plays from Ital. (1911) 221 What is there no body to take my rent hens. 1611 R. Cotgrave Dict. French & Eng. Tongues Ostize, a rent henne, &c., paid, or deliuered, in lieu of a dwelling house. 1777 J. Nicolson & R. Burn Hist. Westmorland & Cumberland I. ii. vi. 120 The rent hens, capons, and boons, to be purchased and sold at 16 years value. 1834 New Eng.-German Dict. (1835) I. 241 Huhn,..rent-hen. † rent oyster n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1651 Maldon (Essex) Borough Deeds (Bundle 81, No. 1^v) For fetching of two bushells of rent oisters from Tollesbury. rent-penny n. now historical ΚΠ 1643 E. Calamy Noble-mans Patterne of True & Reall Thankfulnesse 2 It [sc. Thanks-giving] is the only rent penny which God requires for all the blessings hee bestowes upon us. a1696 P. Henry in M. Henry Life x, in M. Henry Wks. (1853) II. 737/1 Praise is our rent-penny, which we pay to our great Landlord. 2000 Amer. Jrnl. Econ. & Sociol. 59 260 At the same time, the ‘rent-penny’—a three percent tax on rents collected for the use of buildings—was reduced to 1.5 percent. † rent salt n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1399–1400 in J. T. Fowler Extracts Acct. Rolls Abbey of Durham (1901) III. 602 Pro cariacione de rentsalt, 18 d. 1800 Jrnl. Assembly State N.Y. (heading) The Rent Salt received for the arrears of Rent, due previous to the 1st day of May, 1799. 1895 Jrnl. Polit. Econ. 3 187 The lessees..to protect themselves against the competition of the rent salt, secured an agreement that none of it should be sold for less then a given minimum unless a reduction were consented to by them. b. Objective and parasynthetic. rent-collector n. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > hire or rent > rent (land or real property) > [noun] > rent-collector rent-gatherer1332 kaner1590 taker-upa1649 rent-collector1821 1821 Leeds Mercury 17 Mar. Apply to Mr. Musgrave, Rent-Collector, Duke-Street, who will show the Tenements and treat for the same. 1823 ‘J. Bee’ Slang Rent-collector, a highwayman who robs for money only. 1875 W. S. Hayward Love against World 9 My agent, who employs the same rent collector as he does. 1932 T. S. Eliot Sweeney Agonistes 29 If he was alive then the milkman wasn't and the rent-collector wasn't. 1996 J. Grenfell-Hill Growing up in Wales 164 Everybody came on a Monday: the rent collector, the tally-man..and the insurance man. † rent-enhancer n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1615 R. Brathwait Strappado 214 Now (rent-inhauncer) where away so fast? rent-holder n. ΚΠ 1657 J. Trapp Comm. Job xxxi. 39 [I have caused] the poor Rent-holders..to misse of a subsistence. 1790 E. Leach Treat. Universal Inland Navigations ix. 146 Such as live on, and farm their own lands, and some of the most capital of the rent-holders, carry much more manure than the common and inferior rent-holders. 1836 Guernsey & Jersey Mag. 1 191 That part of the system which acknowledged as perpetual those guarantees which are now limited to forty years, and allowed the rent-holder the privilege of claiming from the garant no less than nine years' arrears. 2001 P. Boettke in J. E. Biddle et al. Economics broadly Considered xi. 213 It might cost more to compensate the pre-existing rent-holder for their loss of the future income stream. rent-hunter n. (sense 2c). ΚΠ 1943 Boston Herald 28 July 12/1 A recent..cartoon showed two weary rent-hunters walking past the White House. rent master n. [originally after Middle Dutch rentmeester, rentemeester, rentmeister, etc. (compare quot. c1483; Dutch rentmeester). Compare Middle Low German rentemēster, rentemeister, rentmēster, rentmeister, Middle High German rentmeister (German Rentmeister)] ΚΠ c1483 in Notes & Queries (1969) July 253/1 Rentmeester: rentmaister. 1546 J. Bale tr. J. Jonas True Hystorie Christen Departynge M. Luther f. 9 Huldrick hans hys frynde, whych was there the rent mastre [Ger. Rendtmeister] of that cytie. a1617 J. Melville Mem. Own Life (1827) 381 The rentmesters and ther officers..to be trew responseable mean men. 1762 P. Murdoch tr. A. F. Büsching New Syst. Geogr. IV. 339 The bishopric is divided into prefecturates, each of which has a noble seneschal belonging to it, together with a rent-master, who collects the board-revenues belonging to the bishop. 1839 H. Pigott Rec. Real Life in Palace & Cottage I. xii. 263 On the opposite side of the court, appeared the Rent-master with his wife and children. 1851 Wisconsin Express 8 May 3/1 The rent master also took a lively interest in the new comer. 2001 Metrop. Mus. Mus. Jrnl. 36 157/2 He was also a rent master..that is, a collector of revenues on behalf of the city council. † rent owner n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1821 Rep. Cases Court of Exchequer VII. 417 Entitling the party to re-enter, and have again the land without regard to any possibility or power the rent owner may have to obtain the rent, by any other means or exertions of his own. 1897 Harvard Law Rev. 11 4 It was no injury to the rent owner that the tenant appropriated the whole of the rents and profits to his own use. rent payer n. ΚΠ 1622 Relation Eng. Plantation Plimoth, New Eng. 72 The rent taker liues on sweet morsels, but the rent payer eats a drie crust often with watery eies. 1885 Kendal Mercury 10 July 5/3 Denunciation of rent claimers, of rent payers, and above all of land-grabbers. 1936 H. M. Kallen Decline & Rise of Consumer x. 261 Consumerization converts rent payers into home owners. 2008 Birmingham Evening Mail (Nexis) 29 July 39 I too think it was fair that every wage earner living in the city..actually paid their share instead of lumping it all on home owners and rent payers. rent-paying n. and adj. ΚΠ 1405 in H. M. Flasdieck Mittelengl. Originalurkunden (1926) 36 The forsaid newe hauen is at Walberswyk..shal bene afulbonde for euer more be twen bothe parties, for the forsaide annuell rent paiyng. 1441 in P. E. Jones Cal. Plea & Mem. Rolls London Guildhall (1954) V. 67 At þe vsell vsuell dayes of Rent paying..at Witsonday, Lammasday, alhalowday, and Candelmasday..pay or do pay to þe seid Prioresse, [etc.]. 1797 Distilleries Considered 12 Let the cautious landlord remember, that this is a great rent-paying article. 1877 Scribner's Monthly Jan. 348/2 The former rent-paying tenant was invited to become his own landlord. 1997 Neon May 7/2 Thomas..starred in a procession of rent-paying US TV movies. rent-raiser n. ΚΠ 1549 H. Latimer 1st Serm. before Kynges Grace sig. Dii^v You landelordes, you rentreisers,..you haue for your possessions yerely to much. 1721 J. Strype Eccl. Memorials II. ii. xxiv. 453 There might be Promoters,..to promote all other Offenders: such as Rent-raisers, Oppressors of the Poor, Extortioners, Bribers, Usurers. 1882 Times 15 Nov. 5/6 The answer is that the name ‘valuator’ (synonymous in Ulster with ‘rent-raiser’) inspires distrust and terror in the minds of the agricultural classes. 1920 Winnipeg Free Press 17 July 6/5 Do not have a dictator and a rent raiser govern where you shall or shall not live. 1994 P. Bew Ideology & Irish Question (1998) 83 Aird accused Meehan of failing to support the labourers' strike at Ballyfin; Meehan replied by accusing Aird of being a rent-raiser himself. rent-raising n. and adj. ΚΠ 1556 R. Robinson tr. T. More Utopia (ed. 2) f. 12 (margin) Landlordes by the wai checked for Rent-raisyng. 1604 S. Rowlands Looke to It sig. D4^v Rent-raysing rascals, you that care not how You do exact vpon the needy wretch, That liue euen on the poore mans sweating brow, And from his painefull toyle, your ryches fetch. 1793 J. Anderson Bee 3 Apr. 189 It is a state of mind, which, if the system of rent-raising continue to prevail with the same rigour which has been employed for some time past, will fall to the share of few among the class of farmers. 1876 Times 24 Apr. 10/5 It is altogether owing to an artificial system of rent raising. 1995 A. Macinnes in S. G. Ellis & S. Barber Conquest & Union vii. 186 The vernacular poets' stress on the traditional obligations of chiefs and leading gentry to their clansmen did not reverse absenteeism, prevent the accumulation of debts, or check rent-raising throughout Scottish Gaeldom. † rent-raker n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1611 J. Speed Hist. Great Brit. ix. ix. 524/1 The Legate himselfe, whom they termed an Vsurer, Symonist, Rent-raker, Money-thirster. † rent-rearer n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1549 H. Latimer 1st Serm. before Kynges Grace sig. Diiii Then these grasiers, and inclosers, renterearers, are hindrers of the kings honour. 1612 J. Taylor Sculler sig. D4^v Our Christian brother heere lyes dead..Who was the patterne of true Charity: No Drunkard, Whoremonger, nor no vile swearer, No greedy Vsurer, nor no Rent-rearer. rent-receiver n. ΚΠ 1614 R. Tailor Hogge hath lost Pearle iv. sig. F2^v Creatures, with curious nature fram'd as I suppose, For rent receauers to her treasury. 1794 Times 19 Aug. 2/3 On the 28th, at night, were guillotined here, the following persons—Maximilian Robspierre, 35 years old, a native of Arras..P. Guerin, a Rent-receiver. 1894 A. Morrison Tales Mean Streets 294 A professional rent-receiver and seller-up. 1943 in E. Blunden Return to Husbandry 12 The squire has become an absentee landlord, a mere rent-receiver. 2000 Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 105 1554 It is in their interest to eliminate the rent, and in the interest of the rent receiver to protect the advantage. rent-warner n. ΚΠ 1836 Times 5 Mar. 1/4 I never employed him as a rent warner. 1903 M. MacDonagh Life Daniel O'Connell ix. 162 A..body of men—escorted by the bailiffs and rent-warners of the estate. 1907 Times 2 Oct. 12/5 The owner of the cattle is bailiff and rent warner on several properties near Ennis. rent-yielding adj. ΚΠ 1839 R. Dawes Nix's Mate I. i. 14 Alas! that venerable hill has fallen before the avarice of man, and is now covered by rent-yielding palaces. 1848 J. S. Mill Princ. Polit. Econ. I. iii. v. 565 Selling at a scarcity value..never is, nor has been, nor can be, a permanent condition of any of the great rent-yielding commodities. 1891 Polit. Sci. Q. 6 132 He has recognized as rent-yielding agents not only land, but a number of other things that give to some producers advantages over others. 1956 W. Isard Location & Space-Economy (1965) 197 Thus, theoretically, the farm operator is indifferent to the position at which he is located, provided, of course, he is within the rent-yielding hinterland. 1990 Jrnl. Semitic Stud. 35 364 A sustained effort..to ensure that those who controlled the rent-yielding property..should be legally enabled to extract ‘fair’ rent from their cultivators. c. Miscellaneous attributive uses. See also rentcharge n., rent roll n., etc. rent allowance n. ΚΠ 1884 Manitoba Daily Free Press 8 Apr. 2/1 This will probably leave him only a few hundred dollars of the rent allowance for his own pocket. 1947 Rep. Assistance Board 1946 iv. 21 The Statutory Regulations provide for the addition of a ‘rent allowance’ according to the circumstances of each individual case. 1998 A. O'Hanlon Talk of Town (1999) ii. iv. 141 Not even claiming rent allowance because of his stupid pride. rent-arrear n. (also rent-arrears) ΚΠ 1669 Ormonde MSS. in 10th Rep. Royal Comm. Hist. MSS (1885) App. v. 89 Recovery of rent-arrears due on lands in the county of Dublin. 1714 G. Jacob Accomplish'd Conveyancer I. 176 If there were any Rent arrear at the Rent-day before the Lessor's Death, then the Executors or Administrators shall have that, and may either distrain, or have an Action of Debt for it. 1817 W. Selwyn Abridgem. Law Nisi Prius (ed. 4) II. 1121 If the defendant avow for so much rent arrear, part whereof is not due at the time of the distress, and enters judgment for the whole, it will be error. 1880 Times 6 Sept. 6/8 When he took possession of the field he made himself responsible in ecclesiastical law for the tithe rent arrears. 1976 Lancs. Evening Post 7 Dec. 3/3 The rent arrears started to build up but she had apparently used the money to buy clothes for her children. 2000 Big Issue 28 Feb. 6/3 The couple, up to their eyeballs in rent arrears, were only entitled to nominal housing benefit and their son refused to pay for food or rent. rent assessment n. ΚΠ 1881 Times 21 Apr. 9/3 Every landlord whose tenants may seek to avail themselves of the advantages of the Bill..must be mulcted, as the preliminary step in the process of rent assessment. 1965 Act 13 & 14 Eliz. II. c. 75 §25 There shall be constituted rent assessment committees in accordance with the provisions of Schedule 2 to this Act. 1990 Which? Bks. Apr. 7/4 (caption) Letting your property This book will explain about rent levels and the role of the rent assessment committee. rent book n. ΚΠ 1616 F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Scornful Ladie i. sig. C3 Fire off thy annotations and thy rent bookes. 1718 J. Drummond Accomptant's Pocket-compan. 11 Having prepared the Rent-Book for the succeeding Year, the Rests come to be the first Article, as a Charge upon the Tenant in his next Accompt. 1830 M. Edgeworth Let. 4 Nov. (1971) 427 The rent to us is to be from his commencement the raised rent. See Rent book. 1898 Daily News 19 Dec. 6/7 The rent was higher than was stated on the rent book. 1978 Lancashire Life Apr. 67/1 He inspected Aunt Clara's rent-book and asked her for the names of her grocer and butcher. 2003 T. Morton Further North you Go 10 ‘How much?’.. ‘That depends..Will you be wanting a rent book?’ rent contract n. ΚΠ 1766 in Coll. Treaties of Peace, Alliance & Commerce (1772) II. 301 The possessor may present his paper, to the office of the Commission at Paris, there to be examined, revised, liquidated, and converted into reconnoissances, or rent contracts, according to the reduction fixed and agreed upon. 1876 Carroll County (Georgia) Times 21 Jan. 3/2 The rent contract was made with Mr. John Dunbar of Newman, though it is said others are associated with him. 1940 W. Faulkner Hamlet i. i. 14 But then I hear tell he always makes his rent contracts later than most. 2002 D. Wood Medieval Econ. Thought viii. 196 He, too, saw the rent contract as one of sale, but he suggested that what was sold was not money itself but a right to receive a particular sum of money over an agreed time span, or even for ever. rent day n. ΚΠ 1439 in L. Morsbach Mittelengl. Originalurkunden (1923) 18 (MED) The seyd margere and Rechard schall pey at ye rent-deys for haldyng of ye land to ye chefe lordes obuf. 1577 B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry i. f. 47 The lorde must not deale with his Tenaunt so straightly in euery poynt, as by lawe he might, for his rent dayes, bargaynes of wood, quit rentes, or suche, the rigour wherein is more troublesome then beneficial. 1616 T. Adams Garden of Graces in Divine Herball 26 If his rent-day make euen with his Silkeman, Mercer, Taylor, he is well. 1765 R. Cumberland Summer's Tale i. vii. 24 I am sure, before Mrs. Clara was with us, he never us'd to come to Father's, except upon Rent-day. 1811 J. Austen Sense & Sensibility I. ii. 21 To be tied down to the regular payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it takes away one's independence. 1912 Woman's Home Compan. Jan. 19/1 I worked like a beaver, and, before rent-day came around, had two housekeeping apartments and one ‘bachelor suite’ nicely fitted up. 1996 P. Wilde Which? Guide to Renting & Letting (rev. ed.) iii. 53 The tenant may at any time by written notice to the landlord require the following information in writing:..(b) the rent payable and the rent days. rent dinner n. ΚΠ 1843 W. M. Thackeray Ravenswing vii, in Fraser's Mag. Sept. 324/1 They would invite all farmers to a rent-dinner. 1905 H. Evans Highways & Byways in Oxf. & Cotswolds iv. 84 At some colleges the annual rent dinner is still kept up. 1981 J. Robin Elmdon viii. 158 The tenant's place at the annual rent dinner. 2007 Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Nexis) 23 Feb. 28 Newspaper reports of the time talked in awed tones of the ‘rent dinners’, when Lord Dartmouth's better-off tenants would gather for three days of feasting, with fine food and wines. rent man n. ΚΠ ?1750 Country Lamentation 5 There's soap, stiffin, and blew so bright, With pins and needles that's fu' tight, Makes us slip off 'twixt day and night, And leave the masters rent man. 1856 X. D. MacLeod Biogr. Hon. Fernando Wood xvi. 293 The rent man, with a disappointed air, retired with his friend. 1943 L. Hughes in Poetry Sept. 312 The rent man knocked. 1996 F. McCourt Angela's Ashes (1997) xii. 320 The rent man is losing patience. He tells Mam, Four weeks behind you are, missus. rent money n. ΚΠ 1591 G. Fletcher Of Russe Common Wealth xii. f. 37 The inhabitants or tenants of these and the other townes, pay some rent money, some other rent dueties (called Obrokey) as certeine Chetfirds. 1746 N.-Y. Weekly Post-boy 19 May 2/1 His Landlord permits him to make use of his Rent Money for Fifty Years without demanding it. 1824 Ann. Reg. July 99/1 He saw the same man force open the chest in which he kept the rent-money. 1956 H. Gold Man who was not with It ii. 11 I saw that squirrelly look which says: ‘Win it all back with the rent money’. 2004 J. Denby Billie Morgan xv. 131 Food for t' babby, an' the rent money owin'. rent office n. ΚΠ 1786 Trans. India from Commencement French War v. 142 The payments of the zimindars were retarded by a collusion with the cutcherry or rent office. 1838 Jrnl. Statist. Soc. 1 113 With the view of attempting to supply the defects in the doubtful information hitherto received..an application..has been made to the heads of the Rent-Office and Managers of the Royal Domains. 1900 Times 6 Mar. 6/2 He advocated the destruction of landlordism and the ending of the rent office. 1971 B. Malamud Tenants 6 From the District Rent Office..Harry had learned he was a statutory tenant. 2003 P. Pillay in D. Chislett Urban 03 88 I was sitting in the bus and I was telling this auntie sitting by me that I'm going to go see my old friend outside the rent office. rent officer n. ΚΠ 1889 Times 15 May 6/3 Shaughnessy..fought with the usual weapons of the rent officer against the return of the Nationalist candidate. 1976 Southern Evening Echo (Southampton) 13 Nov. 6/5 The rent officer in determining fair rents can consider under his brief the property and then fix his figure with reference to similar properties. 1994 T. Byrne Local Govt. in Brit. (ed. 6) iv. 100 Rents are settled (if necessary with the assistance of rent officers and rent panels). rent payment n. ΚΠ 1787 W. Hutchinson Hist. & Antiq. Durham II. 497 They were so stiled from their rent payments, which we presume were anciently made in grain. 1898 Naugatuck (Connecticut) Daily News 4 Aug. (heading) Twenty-five cents must be paid on receipts for rent payment. 1989 Atlantic Sept. 72/2 In this neat room, a place of official normalcy, tenants make their rent payments, request repairs, and lodge complaints. 2004 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 23 Nov. a22/3 Congress approved $20 billion..for the Section 8 housing program, which helps poor people meet their rent payments. rent rebate n. ΚΠ 1910 Newark (Ohio) Advocate 17 Nov. 1/7 (headline) Rent rebate for babies. 1936 G. Wilson Rent Rebates 10 There is a not inconsiderable body of opinion which has already expressed itself in favour of the adoption of rent rebate schemes. 1999 Nouse Mar. 2/2 The motion to campaign for rent rebates and enforcement of the guidelines set down by the York County Council was unopposed and passed almost unanimously. rent restriction n. ΚΠ 1899 Jrnl. Soc. Compar. Legislation 1 505 The Distress for Rent Restriction Act, 1898..protects..the property of, or under hire to, any woman, from distress for rent. 1920 Times 22 June 16/4 The House occupied most of its time to-day in discussing the Rent Restriction Bill. 1940 Economist 5 Oct. 422/2 Profiteers have been threatened with the Rent Restriction Acts. 1952 A. Christie Mrs. McGinty's Dead ii. 17 Under the Rent Restriction Act the landlord couldn't get the old woman out. 2003 R. Codlin Hist. Found. of Jamaican Law iii. 28 Due process was established by virtue of section 27, as amended, of the Rent Restriction Act. † rent-scot n. Obsolete ΚΠ 1631 in P. Bingham Rep. Court Common Pleas (1829) 5 341 A grant..of..all rents, revenues, and services, rents-charge, rents-scot &c...arising in or within the lordships. rent suit n. ΚΠ 1854 Decisons Sudder Dewanny Adawlut 1853 378 The judge..requires the moonsiff to admit to representation in the rent suit, any party..who may establish their titles. 1883 19th Cent. Sept. 439 As regards the procedure in rent-suits, no material change is made by the Bill. 1979 Mod. Asian Stud. 13 113 By using a shorter pole for the batwara measurement and then presenting the results as evidence in a rent suit. 1996 Social Scientist 24 87 A false rent suit had been brought against him by the naib. rent tribunal n. ΚΠ 1896 Times 23 Apr. 7/4 If a rent tribunal had been in existence 25 years ago the tenants whose hard cases had been quoted would be in a better position to-day. 1945 Daily Herald 20 Apr. 4/3 Unanimous proposals of the Committee are: The establishment of 198 rent tribunals for England and Wales. 1973 E. Berckman Victorian Album 28 It means spending half your life before the Rent Tribunal. 1993 Jrnl. Econ. Lit. 31 435/1 What rent should a rent tribunal set? C2. rent boy n. slang a young male prostitute. ΘΚΠ society > morality > moral evil > licentiousness > unchastity > prostitution > [noun] > male prostitute sellary1598 spintry1598 varlet1609 whore1609 prostitute1761 renter1893 trade1919 pimp1942 call boy1943 rent1967 rent boy1969 tart1976 1969 Jeremy 1 iii. 25/1 At the upper-end of the scene is the kept-boy who has little or nothing in common with the humbler ‘rent-boy’. 1976 M. Deakin & J. Willis Johnny go Home iii. 56 Between the ages of fifteen and twenty he had been a rent boy, a boy prostitute living and working in the West End. 1996 Sydney Morning Herald 12 Feb. (The Guide Suppl.) 17/2 Theo is a rentboy in Berlin. rent car n. North American a hire car. ΘΚΠ society > travel > means of travel > a conveyance > vehicle > vehicles (plying) for hire > [noun] > hired car rent car1915 1915 Los Angeles Times 2 Oct. ii. 3/6 William Graves..driver of a rent car, and his three passengers..were all thrown from their machine. 1932 W. Faulkner Light in August xv. 338 They went straight to the garage where Salmon keeps his rent car. 1970 Islander (Victoria, Brit. Columbia) 6 Dec. 7/1 Ben quickly turned his machine into a ‘rent’ car. ‘They call them taxis now,’ he explained. 2003 S. Coonts Liberty 86 You think they're poor working slobs..driving a rent car that must cost them two hundred, maybe two-fifty a week? rent control n. government control and regulation of the amounts charged for rented housing (esp. of a particular type), either by setting rent levels or restricting rent increases. ΚΠ 1916 Marion (Ohio) Star 12 Mar. 8/1 The representatives of property owners imposed..withdrawal of OPA federal residential rent control from states adopting their own residential rent control laws. 1931 Rep. Inter-Departmental Committee Rent Restrictions Acts (Min. Health) xiv. 46 Some of us, if we had had the task of devising the original system of rent control..would perhaps have proposed the setting up of rent courts. 1997 Nation (N.Y.) 23 June 18/2 The major unions have made preserving rent control a priority..because many of their members live in regulated apartments. rent-controlled adj. (of rented housing) subject to rent control; (also) designating a tenant of such housing. ΚΠ 1929 Times 3 Jan. 14/4 All the houses in the district concerned were rent-controlled. 1959 N.Y. Times 15 Sept. 38/6 The reluctance of the courts to evict a rent-controlled tenant for reasons of misconduct. 1971 B. Malamud Tenants 6 The building was rent-controlled, and from the District Rent Office..Harry had learned he was a statutory tenant. 1996 City Paper (Baltimore) 4 Dec. 33/2 He lives in his parents' old, unfashionable house, not a ridiculously well-appointed, suspiciously rent-controlled New York apartment. rent party n. U.S. (chiefly in African-American use) = house rent party n. at house rent n. Compounds 2. ΘΚΠ society > leisure > social event > fund-raising events > [noun] > rent party parlour social1883 house party1923 house rent party1925 rent party1925 stomp1926 boogie1929 shake1946 skiffle1946 1925 N.Y. Amsterdam News 28 Oct. 1/4 ‘Rent Parties’ which are given by persons to pay their house rent are becoming a menace to the community. 1956 M. W. Stearns Story of Jazz (1957) xiii. 145 Its ancestry was long obscured by labels such as ‘house-party’, ‘rent-party’, ‘parlor social’, or simply ‘Harlem’ piano style. 1968 P. Oliver Screening Blues vi. 203 One of the most frequently heard songs in the rent-party repertoire was The Boy in the Boat. 1993 S. L. Delany et al. Having our Say v. 97 The less well-to-do would hold ‘rent parties’, where, for a small entrance fee, visitors would drink bathtub gin and dance until dawn, raising money to pay the landlord. 2001 E. Bernard in L. Hughes & C. Van Vechten Remember me to Harlem p. xiv ‘Rent parties’, thrown ostensibly to raise rent money for the host, became an important way for blacks to congregate privately, away from the curious gazes of white people. rent-seeker n. Economics a person who engages in rent-seeking. ΚΠ 1974 A. Krueger in Amer. Econ Rev. 64 293/2 In most cases, people do not perceive themselves to be rent seekers. 2008 Canberra Times (Nexis) 30 Oct. What the Government must remember as it is being lobbied by rent-seekers is that business has known, since at least the time of the Kyoto protocol in 1997, that Australia and the rest of the world faced a carbon-constrained future. rent-seeking n. Economics the fact or process of seeking to gain larger profits by manipulating public policy or economic conditions, esp. by means of securing beneficial subsidies or tariffs, making a product artificially scarce, etc.; cf. sense 4. ΚΠ 1974 A. Krueger in Amer. Econ Rev. 64 291/1 Rent seeking results in a divergence between the private and social costs of certain activities. 2008 Wall St. Jrnl. 13 May a16/2 Once government creates an artificial scarcity of carbon, how the credits are allocated creates a huge new venue for political rent-seeking and more subsidies for favored industries. rent stabilization n. U.S. = rent control n.In New York City rent stabilization differs from rent control, esp. in applying to different types of housing, although sometimes the terms are used interchangeably. ΚΠ 1942 Indiana (Pa.) Evening Gaz. 23 July 14/2 There is no Federal rent control in these areas at this time and rent stabilization is on a voluntary basis. 1969 N.Y. Times 24 Apr. 46/6 New housing will not be subject to the new rent stabilization law and landlords can thus have field day in this sector. 2006 N.Y. Mag. 18 Sept. 38/1 New York has owed a key part of its allure—its unwillingness to honor class divisions with geographic ones—to rent stabilization. rent-stabilized adj. U.S. (of rented housing) subject to rent stabilization; (also) designating a tenant of such housing; cf. rent-controlled adj. ΚΠ 1970 N.Y. Times 29 June 39/1 The union had decided to withhold strike action to give the owners of the 1.3 million rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments in the city time to study the new rent-control law. 1971 N.Y. Mag. 29 Mar. 32/2 Unlike rent-controlled tenants,..rent-stabilized tenants must always have a lease. 2005 A. Ohlin Missing Person (2006) i. 6 Originally he'd helped my old roommate..get a rent-stabilized apartment in the building. rent strike n. a refusal to pay rent, usually by a number of people as an organized protest. ΘΚΠ society > authority > lack of subjection > rebelliousness > militancy > [noun] > demonstration > types of demonstration or protest counterprotest1595 student demonstration1856 lie-in1867 rent strike1881 hunger strike1889 march1908 protest march1914 occupation1920 lie-down1936 sit-down1936 sit-in1936 freedom march1947 vigil1956 freedom walk1957 swim-in1960 freedom ride1961 sitting in1961 sleep-out1961 fish-in1964 live-in1964 stall-in1964 sleep-in1965 Long March1967 love-in1967 talk-in1967 write-in1967 die-in1970 dirty protest1979 blanket protest1982 1881 Chicago Sunday Tribune 23 Oct. 6/1 All Irishmen are not socialists nor madmen, and..neither the well-to-do tenant nor priest will countenance a rising (for that is what a rent-strike would be). 1917 A. Cahan Rise of David Levinsky (1993) xiv. iii. 511 The real estate boom collapsed... Its immediate cause..was a series of rent strikes inspired and engineered by the Jewish socialists through their Yiddish daily. 1970 N.Y. Times 5 Feb. 38/6 The student organization also is lending moral and organizational support to..a widespread local rent strike. 1994 T. Byrne Local Govt. in Brit. (ed. 6) xiii. 443 But sometimes frustration breaks out in confrontation and direct action—demonstrations, rent strikes, occupation of nurseries or schools or squatting in houses, disturbing council meetings and inquiries or even rioting. rent table n. a circular or octagonal table made in the 18th cent., later believed to have been used for the receipt of rent from tenants. ΘΚΠ society > inhabiting and dwelling > inhabited place > a building > furniture and fittings > table > [noun] > other tables dormant tablec1405 set board1512 chair-table1558 oyster table1559 brushing-table1575 stand board1580 table-chair1671 reading table1749 worktable1762 centre table1775 pier table1778 loo-table1789 screen table1793 social table1793 octoped1822 claw-table1832 bench table1838 mould1842 end table1851 pedestal table1858 picnic table1866 examining table1877 silver table1897 changing table1917 rent table1919 capstan table1927 conference table1928 tricoteuse1960 Parsons1962 overflow table1973 butcher's block1976 1919 Times 27 June 25/6 (advt.) A rare old Sheraton mahogany Irish rent-table. 1927 P. Macquoid & R. Edwards Dict. Eng. Furnit. III. 241 A..type, known as a ‘Rent-Table’, was introduced about this time [sc. 1750]. 1952 J. Gloag Short Dict. Furnit. 387 Rent Table, a type of office table made during the second half of the 18th century, with a round or octagonal top, with drawers immediately below. 1973 V. Canning Finger of Saturn i. 4 He..set his briefcase on the round rent table. 1990 B. Gill N.Y. Life xii. 103 Rousuck maintained a luxurious apartment..furnished with handsome eighteenth-century English pieces (an octagonal rent table had been a gift from his friend Sonnenberg). This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online June 2022). rentn.² Brit. /rɛnt/, U.S. /rɛnt/ Forms: 1500s rente, 1500s– rent. Origin: Formed within English, by conversion. Etymon: rent v.¹ Etymology: < rent v.¹ Compare later rend n. 1. a. The result of rending or tearing apart; a separation of parts produced by tearing; esp. a large tear in a garment or piece of fabric. Also figurative. ΘΚΠ the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > [noun] > a tear rent1525 tearing1607 tear1611 rip1673 screed1728 schism1767 skeg1839 snag1854 1525 tr. H. von Brunschwig Noble Experyence Vertuous Handy Warke Surg. xxvii. sig. G.i/2 As he bloweth or kepeth his breth inwarde, then sheweth y^e moystnes comynge out thrughe y^e rente, and departynge of the bone. 1535 Bible (Coverdale) Matt. ix. 16 Then taketh he awaye the pece agayne from the garment, & the rent ys made greater. 1535 Bible (Coverdale) 2 Sam. vi. 8 Then was Dauid sory, because the Lorde had made soch a rente vpon Vsa, and he called the same place Perez Vsa vnto this daye. a1616 W. Shakespeare Julius Caesar (1623) iii. ii. 173 See what a rent the enuious Caska made. View more context for this quotation 1623 W. Gouge Serm. Extent God's Provid. §15 The maine Summier..failed..more shiveringly and with a longer rent in the timber. 1683 in W. R. Scott Rec. Sc. Cloth Manufactory New Mills (1905) 46 That the rents and too near shearing of some cloth..be prevented in time coming. 1728 E. Young Love of Fame: Universal Passion (ed. 2) ii. 98 By night she went, And, while he slept, surpris'd the darling rent. a1817 J. Austen Northanger Abbey (1818) II. xiv. 293 Only think..of my having got that frightful great rent in my best Mechlin so charmingly mended. View more context for this quotation 1846 A. Young Naut. Dict. Rents.., openings or cracks which take place in timber or planks when much exposed to the heat of the sun. 1858 G. MacDonald Phantastes 220 A dark curtain of cloud was lifted up, and a pale blue rent shone between its foot and the edge of the sea. 1878 J. Miller Songs Italy 64 A gust that made rents Thro' the yellow-sailed fishers. 1909 Chatterbox 298/2 The hem of your dress has a long rent in it. 1925 L. O'Flaherty Informer xvi. 161 Here and there a rent came in the dishevelled panorama of cloud and the sky appeared. 1993 S. Deshpande Binding Vine 177 I had thought, even if my sari is torn, I can wear it so that the rents don't show. †b. one's rent comes in and variants: used with punning allusion to rent n.¹ Obsolete. ΚΠ 1613 A. Nixon Straunge Foot-post f. 4^v His dublet is of the ragged ranke, with neuer a button on it, and his breeches are very faulty, they must be mended, I maruell he buyeth himselfe no better cloathes now his rents begin to come in so fast. 1616 W. Clerk Withals's Dict. Eng. & Lat. (1634) 166/1 Pannosus.., wee say in English ‘that hath his rent come in’. 1721 J. Kelly Compl. Coll. Scotish Prov. 322 They are sad Rents that come in with Tears. An Answer to them, who seeing your Cloaths ragged, say, Your Rents are coming in. Taken from the double signification of the two Words Rents and Tears. 1738 J. Swift Compl. Coll. Genteel Conversat. 56 I have torn my Petticoat with your odious Romping; my Rents are coming in. †2. A breach, split, schism, or dissension in a society or party, or between two people. Obsolete. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > dissent > [noun] > division or lack of unity > a state or instance of slit1390 breach1573 rent1580 rifta1609 split1729 split-up1878 1580 R. Parsons Brief Disc. f. 18 They beleeue, that to breake the Unitiye of the same Church, and to make anye rent or disunion in the same (which is the proper fault of Schismatykes,) is also damnable. 1608 J. Sylvester tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. (new ed.) ii. iv. 81 The rent Of th' Hebrew Tribes from th' Isheans Regiment. 1679 W. Penn Addr. Protestants i. 11 It occasions great Unkindnesses, Rents, Confusions and Divisions in Families. 1719 R. Wodrow Corr. (1843) II. 456 Lest our miserable rents be heightened, and unruly passions be provoked. 1822 J. Galt Sir Andrew Wylie III. xviii. 152 No to mak a rent and a rive o't a'thegither between us. 3. a. A cleft, a fissure; a deep narrow gorge or valley. Also: a narrow breach in a wall, etc. ΘΚΠ the world > the earth > land > landscape > low land > hole or pit > [noun] > chasm or cleft chinec1050 earth-chinea1300 kinc1330 chimneyc1374 haga1400 riftc1400 refta1425 dungeonc1475 rupturec1487 gaping1539 rent1603 chasm1621 abrupt1624 hiulcitya1681 clove1779 score1790 strid1862 fent1878 the world > space > relative position > condition of being open or not closed > an opening or aperture > [noun] > opening or break in continuity > in a wall, hedge, fence, dike, etc. sharda1000 gapc1380 slopc1386 slapc1425 intermission1624 gap-stead1644 gool1664 gateway1707 break1725 smeuse1819 rent1879 1603 H. Timberlake True & Strange Disc. 18 The Rocke..is slitte, like as it had bin cleft with wedges and beetles..: nor is the rent small, but so great in some places, that a man might easily hide himselfe in it. 1705 J. Addison Remarks Italy 283 I believe every one who sees this vast Rent in so high a Rock..must be satisfy'd that it was the Effect of an Earthquake. 1705 J. Addison Remarks Italy 469 From Lyons there is another great Rent, that runs across the whole Country. 1756 T. Amory Life John Buncle I. 318 Upon going into it, I found that it went straight on among the mountains, like a rent, or open crack. 1815 W. Wordsworth White Doe of Rylstone i. 17 Oft does the White Doe loiter there, Prying into the darksome rent. 1879 S. C. Bartlett Egypt to Palestine xxiv. 491 We..could easily have passed through the rents in the walls. 1905 Burlington Mag. June 205/1 The rent in the wall of the building may be noticed. 2008 Star (S. Afr.) (Nexis) 22 Mar. 6 The wind runs through the rent in the rock like a blizzard. †b. Coal Mining. A cleavage plane in a coal seam. Obsolete. rare. ΚΠ 1883 W. S. Gresley Gloss. Terms Coal Mining Rent (S[cotland].), see Back [defined as a plane of cleavage in coal, &c., having frequently a smooth parting and some sooty coal included in it]. †4. The act of tearing or rending; the fact of being torn. Obsolete. rare. ΘΚΠ the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > [noun] tatteringc1380 rendinga1398 rifta1400 rentingc1405 ripping1463 direption1483 outriving1488 dilaceration1545 raving1553 dilaniation1569 divulsion1603 discission1628 discerption1645 tear1666 rent1753 shredding1954 1753 S. Richardson Hist. Sir Charles Grandison IV. xxxvii. 255 In order to give him a hint, I pinned my apron to his coat, without considering who was likely to be a sufferer by it; and he, getting up, in his usual nimble way, gave it a rent, and then looked behind him with so much apprehension. 1832 W. Macgillivray Trav. & Researches A. von Humboldt v. 72 The Gulf of Cariaco owed its existence to a rent of the Continent. 1864 Ld. Tennyson Aylmer's Field in Enoch Arden, etc. 79 [He] read; and tore [the letter] As if the living passion symbol'd there Were living nerves to feel the rent. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022). rentn.³ Brit. /rɛnt/, U.S. /rɛnt/ Forms: 1900s– rent, 1900s– 'rent. Origin: Formed within English, by clipping or shortening. Etymon: parent n. Etymology: Shortened < parent n. slang (chiefly U.S.). A parent. Usually in plural. ΘΚΠ society > society and the community > kinship or relationship > kinsman or relation > parent > [noun] parent?a1425 old one1642 aged p.1861 aged parent1861 rent1968 1968 Current Slang (Univ. S. Dakota) 3 i. 11 Rents, parents. 1984 N.Y. Post 6 Jan. I gotta hit the rents for some bucks. 1992 Spy (N.Y.) Oct. 32/2 This spate of parental disappearances has caused organizational problems for the institutions concerned—and in many cases, collective sighs of relief (‘No 'rents! Party!’). 2004 J. R. Page Blessed Event xxvi. 270 We gotta get out of here anyway... The 'rents will be home soon, in from a hard day in the hardware business. This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, March 2010; most recently modified version published online March 2022). rentadj. Brit. /rɛnt/, U.S. /rɛnt/ Forms: Middle English– rent, 1800s runt (Irish English (Wexford)). Origin: Formed within English, by conversion. Etymons: English rent , rend v.¹ Etymology: < rent, past participle of rend v.¹ Compare rent v.¹ Torn, pulled apart. Also in quot. c1480: †wearing torn or ragged clothing (obsolete). ΘΚΠ the world > textiles and clothing > clothing > wearing clothing > [adjective] > wearing ragged or tattered clothing tattered1340 fitteredc1380 renta1382 raggedc1390 fortattereda1500 seam-rent1548 shake-ragged1550 tottered1570 beragged1611 betattered1618 shagged1622 tagged1631 duddy1718 the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > [adjective] > torn or torn apart betorna1300 forpinchedc1325 torn1362 broken1377 tatteringc1380 renta1382 fortorn1496 lacerate1514 lacerated1556 rented1559 rived1581 dilaniated1597 dilacerate1602 discerpted1607 berent1608 rended1612 breacheda1649 dilacerated1650 vultured1946 a1382 Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) (Bodl. 959) (1961) Josh. ix. 4 Olde sakkys..& rent [a1425 L.V. brokun; L. scissos] wyne botels. ?a1425 tr. Catherine of Siena Orcherd of Syon (Harl.) (1966) 381 (MED) Trowist þou for to come in þidir to þe weddyng feest wiþ þi foule, rent coote? c1480 (a1400) St. Anastasia 186 in W. M. Metcalfe Legends Saints Sc. Dial. (1896) II. 412 Fra þat place þan vald he ga, raggit & rent & blak alswa. 1582 R. Stanyhurst tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis i. 3 Crash do the rent tacklings. 1597 G. Harvey Trimming T. Nashe sig. C3^v I scorne such ragged rent-foorth speech. 1625 Mountagu in Buccleuch MSS (Hist. MSS Comm.) (1899) I. 262 Our rent country cannot be drawn up, but must be torn more [and] more. 1640 in W. Cramond Rec. Elgin (1903) I. 266 The skynneris old pinsell sumquhat hollit and rent. 1754 J. Cennick Shadows of Christ 20 His torn, mangled, and rent Body resembled the embroidered Robe. 1765 J. Ogilvie Solitude 33 From his rent heart now burst the pitying sigh. 1819 P. B. Shelley Rosalind & Helen 42 Leaves..like flowers delicate and fair, On its rent boughs. 1876 A. C. Swinburne Erechtheus 1345 Earth groans from her great rent heart. 1913 E. Y. Mullins Freedom & Authority in Relig. x. 352 Their written records are thus the fastenings which hold open the sides of the rent veil, not a veil obscuring God. 1994 M. Williamson Illuminata (new ed.) ii. i. 65 Prayer reweaves the rent fabric of the universe. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022). rentv.¹ Brit. /rɛnt/, U.S. /rɛnt/ Forms: Middle English rentte, Middle English–1500s rente, Middle English– rent. Origin: A variant or alteration of another lexical item. Etymon: rend v.¹ Etymology: Variant of rend v.¹, after rent, its past participle (see rent adj.). 1. a. transitive. To rend, tear, pull apart or to pieces (a person or thing). Also: to make (a hole, etc.) by rending. Also reflexive and intransitive. Now Scottish and Jamaican. ΘΚΠ the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > tear [verb (transitive)] tearc1000 renta1325 reavea1400 lacerate?a1425 raise?a1425 rivea1425 shearc1450 unsoundc1450 ranch?a1525 rechec1540 pilla1555 wreathe1599 intertear1603 shark1611 vulture1628 to tear at1848 spalt1876 the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > tear [verb (transitive)] > tear apart to-loukc890 to-braidc893 to-tearc893 to-teec893 to-rendc950 to-breakc1200 to-tugc1220 to-lima1225 rivea1250 to-drawa1250 to-tosea1250 drawa1300 rendc1300 to-rit13.. to-rivec1300 to-tusec1300 rakea1325 renta1325 to-pullc1330 to-tightc1330 tirec1374 halea1398 lacerate?a1425 to-renta1425 yryve1426 raga1450 to pull to (or in) piecesc1450 ravec1450 discerp1483 pluck1526 rip1530 decerp1531 rift1534 dilaniate1535 rochec1540 rack1549 teasea1550 berend1577 distract1585 ream1587 distrain1590 unrive1592 unseam1592 outrive1598 divulse1602 dilacerate1604 harrow1604 tatter1608 mammocka1616 uprentc1620 divell1628 divellicate1638 seam-rend1647 proscind1659 skail1768 screeda1785 spret1832 to tear to shreds1837 ribbon1897 a1325 St. George (Corpus Cambr.) 56 in C. D'Evelyn & A. J. Mill S. Eng. Legendary (1956) 157 (MED) Þe swerdes ssolde is body rente & todrawe ato. a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add.) f. 291 He..reseþ oute vnwarre on bestes þat passeþ and renteþ [L. dilaniat] hem..wiþ teeþ and with clawes. c1430 (c1386) G. Chaucer Legend Good Women (Cambr. Gg.4.27) (1879) l. 843 Now what lyoun that be in this forest Myn body mote he renten. c1475 Babees Bk. (Harl. 5086) (2002) i. 4 Nor thurhe clowyng your flesshe loke yee nat Rent. 1490 W. Caxton tr. Eneydos xxi. 76 I haue not rented, vyolated ne broken, the pyramyde of his faders sepulture. 1548 Hall's Vnion: Edward IV f. cxcj Rentyng his cote of armes, and breakyng his sword ouer his hed. 1560 Bible (Geneva) Ecclus. iii. 7 A time to rent, & a time to sowe. 1582 R. Stanyhurst tr. Virgil First Foure Bookes Æneis ii. 35 Hudge beams hee brusteth, strong bars fast ioyncted he renteth. 1613 S. Purchas Pilgrimage viii. iii. 746 To behold such monstrous Icie Ilands, renting themselues with terrour of their owne massines. 1683 Mem. Sir J. Melvil 47 Then she did rent her angry Letter. 1688 R. Holme Acad. Armory iii. 332/1 A Katherine Wheel..is a kinde of Wheel used to rent and tear in peeces grand Malefactors. 1732 J. Swift Market-hill Thorn in Misc. III. xv. 33 Thy confed'rate Dame..; Shall rent her Petticoats to Rags, And wound her Legs with every Bry'r. 1898 Shetland News 30 Apr. Da skurm o' da egg was rentid, an' I wis tryin' ta be carefil i' da takkin' o' him oot. 1952 in F. G. Cassidy & R. B. Le Page Dict. Jamaican Eng. (1967) 380/2 Just tease up the surface and put it in—it rents the earth. 1953 Caribbean Q. 3 i. 10 One kind of yam is called renter because it rents (that is, rends) a hole for itself. 1968 in Sc. National Dict. at Rent v. Per. 1950: Lend me your gullie till I rent this stick. †b. transitive. To tear, pull at, scratch (one's face, hair, clothes, etc.) in grief or rage. Cf. rend v.¹ 3. Obsolete. ΘΚΠ the mind > emotion > anger > manifestation of anger > show anger [verb (transitive)] > tear the hair, face, or clothes rendc1225 rentc1405 the mind > emotion > suffering > sorrow or grief > lamentation or expression of grief > other manifestations of sorrow > manifest sorrow [verb (transitive)] > tear (hair or clothes) rendc1225 rentc1405 c1405 (c1390) G. Chaucer Melibeus (Hengwrt) (2003) §7 Whan Melibeus..seigh al this meschief, he lyk a mad man rentynge [c1430 Cambr. Gg.4.27 rendyng] his clothes gan to wepe and crye. a1425 (?a1400) G. Chaucer Romaunt Rose (Hunterian) (1891) l. 324 Forto Rent in many place Hir clothis..As she that was fulfilled of ire. 1447 O. Bokenham Lives of Saints (Arun.) (1938) 2406 As a wood womman she ferd, Renttynge hir clothis. 1535 Bible (Coverdale) 2 Sam. iii. 31 Rente youre clothes, and gyrde sack cloth aboute you, and make lamentacion for Abner. 1608 J. Sylvester tr. G. de S. Du Bartas Deuine Weekes & Wks. (new ed.) i. v. 412 For, finding them by some fell Serpent slain, She rents her brest. 1657 J. Trapp Comm. Ezra x. 1 Of this we read not..but of other effects of his passion, as renting his garments. c1678 in Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII. 430 My Golden hair I rent and tear like one outragious mad. †c. transitive. To rend or tear, in various figurative senses. Obsolete (Scottish in later use). ΚΠ ?a1475 (a1396) W. Hilton Scale of Perfection (Harl. 6579) i. xc. f. 60^v (MED) Tak it [sc. a stirring of pride] in þi mende ant rent it, brek it, and dispice it. a1500 (?a1450) Gesta Romanorum (BL Add. 9066) (1879) 330 Lustes of the flessh, that..renten [L. dilacerantur] the soule. 1535 Bible (Coverdale) Joel ii. 12 Rente your hertes, & not youre clothes. 1581 G. Pettie tr. S. Guazzo Ciuile Conuersat. (1586) i. 27 b Those who..whet their tongues to rent a sunder..the good name of others. c1595 Countess of Pembroke Psalme xlvi. 19 in Coll. Wks. (1998) II. 41 The voide of aire his voice doth rent. c1614 W. Mure tr. Virgil Dido & Æneas ii. in Wks. (1898) I. 546 In diverse partes his dowbtsome minde he rents. 1681 S. Colvil Mock Poem i. 30 Romish craft and policie, Which rents the Dutch and us asunder. a1699 J. Fraser Memoirs (1738) xii. 354 A seditious person, who did rent the Church of Christ, and was very active to make and keep up the schism. 1728 A. Ramsay Poems II. 175 Then cease, Great James, thy flowing Tears, Nor rent thy Soul in vain. 1747 S. Fielding Familiar Lett. David Simple II. 181 A Person, whose every Word and Look can..rent the Heart asunder. 1893 J. Barclay in R. Ford Harp Perthshire 62 Each Whig saint wad soon repent And straight recant his covenant, And rent it at the news. †2. transitive. To tear out of, from, or off. Also with up. Also reflexive. Obsolete (British regional in later use). ΘΚΠ the world > movement > impelling or driving > pushing and pulling > push and pull [verb (transitive)] > pull > away > away, out, or off violently rend?c1225 rendc1225 rasea1387 renta1398 renda1400 racea1413 rachec1425 rivec1440 rash1485 rush1485 ranch1579 a1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) I. xi. ii. 572 Ventus..nat only he brekiþ vp stones and rentiþ vp [L. euellat] treen but also he disturbliþ heuene and erþe. ?1473 W. Caxton tr. R. Le Fèvre Recuyell Hist. Troye (1894) II. lf. 232^v His gowne was than anone rente of. 1477 W. Caxton in Earl Rivers tr. Dictes or Sayengis Philosophhres (1877) lf. 75^v If they be not wel plesyd wyth all..they wyth a penne race it out or ellys rente the leef out of the booke. 1535 Bible (Coverdale) Lev. xiii. 56 Then shall he rente it out of the clothe. 1539 Bible (Great) 1 Kings xi. 11 I wyll rent the kyngdome from the. 1627 G. Hakewill Apologie iii. i. 156 Wherein nature being but yet greene and growing, wee rent from her, and replant her branches. 1643 J. Burroughes Expos. Hosea (1652) i. 6 These ten Tribes renting themselves from the house of David, did rent themselves likewise from the true worship of God. 1718 J. Fox Wanderer 127 To seize upon the..Books, divest them of the..Ornaments, by renting off the..Plates. 1865 B. Brierley Irkdale I. i. 11 Rentin' a' ther clooas off ther backs wi' blackberryin'. 3. intransitive. To tear; to give way or separate by tearing or splitting. Also figurative. Now rare (British regional). ΘΚΠ the world > existence and causation > creation > destruction > tearing or tearing apart > tear [verb (intransitive)] renda1325 racec1390 sundera1393 shearc1450 ruska1525 rent1526 tear1526 to go abroad1568 raga1642 spalt1731 screeda1801 1526 W. Bonde Pylgrimage of Perfection iii. sig. XXXiiii Doutles, his handes & fete dyd rent and teare, for the weyght of his blessed body. 1563 B. Googe Eglogs Epytaphes & Sonettes sig. B.iiii My Harte with this began to rent. 1575 G. Gascoigne Hearbes* in Wks. (1587) 143 My griefe, Whereof to tel my heart (oh) rents in twaine. 1598 A. M. tr. J. Guillemeau Frenche Chirurg. ii. iii. f. 10/2 Sometimes onlye the first table of the sculle breaketh and renteth. 1641 J. Jackson True Evangelical Temper ii. 139 The soule grows more divine when the tabernacle of the body begins to rent. 1695 R. Blackmore Prince Arthur ii. 60 Though solid Rocks touch'd with Compassion rent, The more obdurate Jew does not relent. 1777 Witty Exploits G. Buchanan (new ed.) iii. 18 The bell not renting, the priests were disgraced as impostors. 1812 P. Forbes Poems 24 My poor head's just rentin'. 1904 Eng. Dial. Dict. V. 88/1 When I waaked hup my yud ud ya-ack ready to rent. 1904 Eng. Dial. Dict. V. 88/1 He thought ‘the branches of his apple-tree would rent, they were so heavy’. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022). rentv.² Brit. /rɛnt/, U.S. /rɛnt/ Forms: Middle English–1500s rente, Middle English– rent. Origin: Of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from French. Partly formed within English, by conversion. Etymons: French renter ; rent n.¹ Etymology: Partly < Anglo-Norman and Middle French renter (French renter ) to provide (a person or institution) with revenues (13th cent.), to pay a certain portion of produce to a feudal lord (a1413; < rente rent n.¹), and partly directly < rent n.¹ †1. transitive. To provide (a person or institution) with revenues; to endow. Obsolete. ΘΚΠ society > law > transfer of property > settlement of property > settle (property) [verb (transitive)] > endow worthOE goodOE dow1297 allowc1400 rentc1400 endowc1440 enduec1440 seizec1450 empossessc1500 revestc1500 indot1520 endote1528 dotatec1540 estate1609 instate1614 portion1663 vest1748 fortune1838 c1400 (a1376) W. Langland Piers Plowman (Trin. Cambr. R.3.14) (1960) A. viii. 35 (MED) Treuþe..bad hym..Releue religioun & renten [v.rr. rentyn, rente, rent, renteth] hem betere. 1485 W. Caxton tr. Thystorye & Lyf Charles the Grete sig. kvij^v/1 He founded, rented & releued many & dyuers chyrches. a1500 Partenay (Trin. Cambr.) 5300 That place [he] augmented passingly..And rentid gretly to the house encresse. a1550 (c1425) Andrew of Wyntoun Oryg. Cron. Scotl. (Wemyss) cxxvi. l. 442 Coldinghame than foundit he, And gert it richely rentit [a1500 Nero dowit] be. 2. transitive. To let (property) for rent or payment; to hire out to someone. Frequently with the person as indirect object. Also in extended use. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > selling > hiring or letting out > hire or rent out [verb (transitive)] let909 hirec1384 rentc1447 to let out1526 locatec1580 wage1590 to farm outa1593 hackney1608 to set out1614 ablocate1623 job1726 to hire out1776 to set off1799 c1447 in Lincs. Notes & Queries (1921) 16 201 (MED) Item, to make ordenauns for the lordshyp off Wythum..hou yt hath be rentyd, whether yt ys better or wers than yt was. 1546 in W. Page Certificates Chantries County of York (1895) II. 323 In the same deanes handes, the Shepgate ther, not rented. 1564 in W. H. Turner Select. Rec. Oxf. (1880) 307 Sydelyng shalbe taken into the most profytt of this Cytye, and to be rentyd and letten also. 1613 I. F. Christes Bloodie Sweat 12 [Soldiers] For prey and spoyle aduenturing to rent Their liues & soules. 1730 A. Gordon tr. F. S. Maffei Compl. Hist. Anc. Amphitheatres 374 Our Community..rents out those Places which otherwise would be useless. 1737 J. Swift Let. to J. Barber 30 Mar. I confess there is no reason why an honourable Society should rent their estate for a trifle. 1779 G. W. Beekman Let. 21 Jan. in Beekman Mercantile Papers (1956) III. 1319 I Would Advise you Not to Sell That Place at Crambary Wheare Mr. Joseph Potts Lives as the Money Now Sells heare 8 and 10 Dollars for one hard Dollar But Rent it out if you Cant Rent it out Let it Lay. 1817 J. K. Paulding Lett. from South II. 64 Our guide..was ‘rented’ out to the King of England, by the legitimate Prince of Hesse Castle. 1895 Outing 27 210/1 A few residents, who eke out a meagre existence by renting boats to the occasional sportsman. 1903 N.Y. Sun 29 Nov. 26 We rent only new pianos of the most modern case design and of exquisite tone. 1952 E. Caldwell Sure Hand of God 81 Refuse to rent them another house. 1995 Independent 6 Feb. 23/1 Go into any one of the world's great museums or galleries and the chances are you will find a booth by the entrance renting out recorded tours of the museum on cassette. 3. transitive. To pay rent for (land, buildings, etc.); to take possession of, hold, occupy, or use, by payment of rent. Also intransitive. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > buying > hiring or renting > hire [verb (transitive)] > rent to take upc1400 mail1425 farm1435 rent1530 rental1640 society > trade and finance > selling > hiring or letting out > hire or rent out [verb (transitive)] > let or lease land or house to let (also put, set, etc.) (out ,forth) to (alsoin, for) farma1325 set1422 rent1530 farm1576 to farm out1576 vent1603 tenant1721 arrenta1754 1530 J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 686/1 I rente, I paye farme hyre. a1616 W. Shakespeare Measure for Measure (1623) ii. i. 231 If this law hold in Vienna ten yeare, ile rent the fairest house in it after three pence a Bay. View more context for this quotation 1622 J. Mabbe tr. M. Alemán Rogue i. 196 Such beggers as are so disposed, may rent certaine children. 1671 W. Berkeley in E. D. Neill Virginia Carolorum (1886) viii. 335 In Virginia about forty thousand persons..have come to settle and rent. 1716 J. Addison Drummer i. 1 I'll e'en marry Nell, and rent a bit of Ground of my own. 1763 T. Jefferson Corr. in Wks. (1859) I. 188 I do not know that I shall have occasion to return, if I can rent rooms in town to lodge in. 1848 Jrnl. Royal Agric. Soc. 9 i. 126 The most independent mode is for the cottager to rent a small garth or close. 1885 Law Rep.: Queen's Bench Div. 15 316 The truck in question was rented by the defendant..from the Midland Waggon Company. 1911 M. W. Ovington Half Man 44 Not only were they unable to rent in neighbourhoods suitable for respectable men and women. 1979 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 17 May 6/2 New Yorkers rent. They don't buy. 1991 A. Chaudhuri Strange & Sublime Addr. (1992) 149 He had been living in a bedsit he had rented as a student. †4. a. transitive. To pay (a sum) as tribute. Obsolete. rare. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > impost, due, or tax > tribute > pay tribute [verb (transitive)] lastc1275 render1526 tribute1570 rent1613 1613 S. Purchas Pilgrimage vi. xi. 524 Muley Hamet..conquered Tombuto and Gago,..Laurence Madoc,..saith that Tombuto rented threescore quintals of gold. b. transitive. To produce or bring in (a sum) as rent. Obsolete. rare. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > management of money > income, revenue, or profit > getting or making money > get or make money [verb (transitive)] > bring in (a revenue) raise1389 levy1469 to pull in?1529 to fetch again1535 to bring in?1548 yield1573 produce1585 answer1596 in1609 render1687 net1758 rent1775 realize1777 earn1847 recoup1868 1775 Ann. Reg. 1774 150 The estate of Broughton which rents above 700l. per annum was..sold for 14,000l. 5. a. intransitive. In infinitive: to be rented, to let; available for rent. Cf. for rent at rent n.¹ 2e.Chiefly North American in 19th and 20th centuries. ΚΠ 1715 Exeter Merc. 16 Sept. 5 To rent from Michaelmas next, a Justment of between Thirty and Forty Pounds a Year..haveing a large Orchard now in its Prime. 1789 World 6 June (advt.) Wanted. A House, to Rent or Purchase, with three good rooms on a floor. 1801 Morning Chron. 23 May 1/3 (advt.) Wanted. A Sugar-House to Rent, fit for the immediate reception of a Sugar-refiner. 1861 Chicago Tribune 26 May 1/8 To Rent—Very Low—Two Floors. 1883 Chicago Tribune 4 May 9/3 To Rent..Flat in elegant apartment building, 7 rooms. 1904 N.Y. Evening Post 18 June 2 The blossoming of ‘To rent’ signs on Broadway graphically shows the real situation. 1947 Chicago Daily News 25 Feb. 1/4 (caption) 4-room apartment to rent for $120. 2005 Loot 13 Dec. (Liverpool ed.) 28/1 (advt.) Property to rent... Flintshire, Buckley, 3 bed detached dorma bungalow. b. intransitive. Chiefly North American. To be hired out for or let at a certain rate. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > buying > hiring or renting > rent [verb (intransitive)] rent1784 society > trade and finance > selling > hiring or letting out > rent out [verb (intransitive)] > let at a certain rent rent1815 1784 G. Washington Diary 15 Sept. (1925) II. 292 The Plantation on which Mr. Simpson lives rented well—viz. for 500 Bushels of Wheat. 1805 New-Eng. Palladium (Boston) 26 July 3/3 Two convenient Tenaments, for small families, that will rent at 12 pr. cent of what they will be sold for. 1815 L. Simond Jrnl. Tour Great Brit. I. 313 Arable land rents at £3 and £4, or even £6 an acre. 1827 P. Cunningham Two Years New S. Wales II. xxii. 74 The market-dues for this traffic renting, the present year, at 840l. 1868 A. S. Hewitt Production Iron & Steel (Paris Universal Exposition 1867) 39 House rent is cheap; a small, ordinary, but comfortable house, with a garden, renting for $16 per year in gold. 1974 Whig-Standard (Kingston, Ont.) 11 Jan. 7/2 The smallest ‘bedsitter’ apartment in central London rents for about $25 per week. 1992 Albuquerque (New Mexico) Monthly Oct. 37/2 (caption) The tux, suitable for any performance in Albuquerque's doubtful performing arts center, rents for $55 and sells for $425. 2005 T. Hall Salaam Brick Lane i. 6 One-bedroom flats were renting for silly money. ‘You won't get a shoebox in Dagenham on your budget, sir,’ one estate agent told me. 6. a. transitive. To charge (a person) rent; to impose a certain rent on (someone). Now rare. ΘΚΠ society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > hire or rent > rent (land or real property) > [verb (transitive)] > charge (one) rent rent1881 1881 Times 13 Apr. 11/2 Any tenant, however lightly rented, will..have the strongest inducement to bring his landlord before the Court and to get the rent judicially fixed. 1894 Daily News 24 Apr. 6/5 It might deprive them of the power..to rent a man upon his own improvements. 1912 Times 16 Jan. 7/6 Under that Act the yearly tenants are heavily rented and have no security of tenure. b. transitive. slang. To obtain money from (a person) by criminal means or in exchange for homosexual favours. ΘΚΠ society > morality > moral evil > licentiousness > unchastity > prostitution > [verb (transitive)] > obtain money from for homosexual favours rent1895 the mind > possession > taking > extortion > practise extortion on [verb (transitive)] ransom?a1425 to poll and pill1528 exact1534 bloodsuck?1541 extort1561 rack1576 flay1584 shave1606 wire-draw1616 punisha1626 sponge1631 squeeze1639 screwa1643 to screw up1655 bleed1680 torture1687 to screw down1725 to shake down1872 to squeeze (someone) until the pips squeak1918 to bleed white1935 rent1956 1895 O. Wilde in H. M. Hyde Trials of Oscar Wilde (1948) 118 He said, ‘Well, he says..that there is no use trying to “rent” you as you only laugh at us.’ 1898 O. Wilde Let. 11 May (1962) 738 Bosie..is devoted to a dreadful little ruffian aged fourteen... Every time he goes home with Bosie he tries to rent him. 1956 C. Mackenzie Thin Ice xiii. 172 ‘I reckon you thought I was trying to rent Mr. Fortescue, eh?’ ‘To do what?’ I asked in astonishment at such an expression. ‘Get money out of him.’ 1987 R. Harrison Season for Death iv. 64 He was being rented, and when the money ran out, he committed suicide. 2001 Independent 22 Dec. (Weekend Review section) 9/1 Bogarde as a married barrister; all knotted tie and defensive, arched right eyebrow, being ‘rented’ (as the phrase was in Wilde's time) over his subvert homosexuality. Compounds Prefixed to a noun preceded by the indefinite article (in the form rent-a- or renta-) in sense 3. a. Designating the rental of the thing specified (originally and chiefly a car). ΚΠ 1921 Chicago Central Business & Office Building Directory 531/1 Rent-a-Ford (Inc.) 1450 S. Michigan av. 1924 Official Gaz. (U.S. Patent Office) 19 Feb. 503/1 The Rentacar Company, Toledo, Ohio..Rentacar U-Drive..Automobiles. Claims use since Aug. 6, 1921. 1935 Arch. Dermatol. & Syphilol. 32 78 A man..who owned a ‘rent-a-car’ business. 1963 Fortune Sept. 78 (advt.) Avis is only No. 2 in rent a cars. So we have to try harder. 1971 E. Afr. Standard (Nairobi) 13 Apr. 13/6 Rent-a-train and unit-train operations across North America would siphon more than 4 million tons of cargo from the Seaway. 1972 ‘G. Black’ Bitter Tea (1973) ii. 26 The key to my rentacar was in one of my damp pockets. 1976 National Observer (U.S.) 21 Aug. 7/1 Rent-a-horse service is available from a riding school next door. 1977 Rolling Stone 19 May 11/2 His is a typical L.A. rent-a-home. 1995 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 10 Aug. 12/1 They meet and bed down in a scabby rent-a-cabin place, where she says the proprietor wouldn't care if you took a ‘goddamn sheep in here’. 2007 Sci. Amer. (U.K. ed.) Jan. 28 Approach the rent-a-car booths, and you will see a sign taped to the countertop reminding customers not to pump E85..because they are not designed for it and it will ruin their engines. b. In various extended and humorous (typically derogatory) uses, suggesting the temporary acquisition or instant availability of the person or thing specified, usually for an expedient or mercenary purpose; spec. (chiefly British) denoting a faction of regular, esp. violent, participants in public protests, in rent-a-crowd, rent-a-mob, etc. See also rent-a-cop n., rent-a-quote adj. and n. ΘΚΠ the mind > possession > acquisition > acquisition or loss [phrase] > easily obtainable up for grabs1945 rent-a-crowd1961 1961 Daily Tel. 21 Dec. 8/6 Dictators!!! When you liberate a territory or mop up a colonialist enclave, are you disappointed and upset to receive only a tepid welcome from the people? Let rentacrowd help you! We can supply cheering crowds for all occasions. 1964 C. Driver Disarmers x. 233 The phenomenon which Peter Simple of the Daily Telegraph cruelly christened ‘Rentacrowd’: London's instantly available progressive claque ready..to demonstrate on a whole range of causes. 1970 Guardian 27 Oct. 11/5 The strategy was based upon a tactic which Oxford students called Rentamob..a hard core of rioters who could turn a demonstration into a confrontation. 1976 Times 27 Jan. 4/1 Squatters in London are reported to be using children in a ‘rent-a-kid’ system, as a means of being rehoused. 1977 New Society 7 July 15/1 Trouble was caused not by ordinary workers, still less by management, but by Rent-a-picket... ‘There's always the Rent-a-crowd element that hangs on to strikes.’ 1980 Wall St. Jrnl. 6 Aug. 1 (heading) Rent-a-judge... California is allowing its wealthy litigants to hire private jurists. 1989 Q Dec. 111/2 Cray is one of the rent-a-celebs that show up here to prod E.C. [sc. Eric Clapton] into some of his most committed performances of the '80s. 1997 Big Issue 9 June 18/1 He's maturing into the British version of Christopher Walken: a convincing rent-a-psycho. 2002 Prospect Dec. 14/2 Soviet style mass rallies with rent-a-crowd supporters bussed in from the provinces. 2006 Time Out N.Y. 14 Sept. 122/4 He personally staged a ‘rent-a-coup’ that landed himself and dozens of would-be accomplices in a Zimbabwean prison. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022). < n.¹?a1160n.²1525n.³1968adj.a1382v.¹a1325v.²c1400
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rentn.1

Compounds

rentn.2

rentn.3

rentadj.

rentv.1

rentv.2

Compounds

rentn.¹

rentn.²

rentn.³

rentv.¹

rentv.²