Other forms: rented, rents, renting
Rent is the money you pay regularly to live in somebody else's property. Pay the rent, the rent is due, rent arrears.
The verb goes both ways and it catches people out: you rent a flat from a landlord, and a landlord rents it out to you. Rent out is the safe way to say the second. American English uses rent for cars and equipment where British English says hire — rent a car in America, hire a car in Britain. Note rent-free, and that a rent is also an old noun meaning a tear in cloth, which is a different word entirely and now almost gone.
1nounrentMoney paid regularly to use somebody else's property.
“The rent went up twice in one year.”
2verbpayTo pay to use something that belongs to somebody else.
“They rented a cottage for the summer.”
3verbpaymentTo let somebody use your property for payment.
“She rents out the top floor.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
rent is a regular payment.
Old French rente meant income from property, from Latin reddita, things given back. Rent is what land gives back to whoever owns it, which is why the word covers both the payment and, in economics, income earned from ownership rather than work.
Latin
rendo
la-eme
rendita
Old French
rente
Middle English
rent
English, today
rent
From Middle English rent, rente, from Old French rente, from la-eme rendita, from Latin rendo, from Latin reddo.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA