interest

Pluralinterests (some meanings)

Formsinterests, interesting, interested

1. 1
   feeling curiousnoununcountable

   Attention to and curiosity about someone or something, often with a wish to know more; also such attention received from others.

   Her interest in marine biology led her to volunteer at the aquarium.

   The lecture sparked a lasting interest in ancient history among the students.

   Similarcuriosity, fascination, attention

   Oppositeindifference, boredom, apathy

   Note

   Curiosity of this kind is something a person has or takes, and it points with in: interest in vintage cars, in doing online coding. Take an interest in often marks attention that has just begun, but it can also describe a steady, ongoing concern. Joseph C. Lincoln's narrator in Mr. Pratt's Patients (1913) fears a lively dog taking an interest in his underpinning. Degree is marked with a lot of, or with a lukewarm interest, as the American novelist Winston Churchill writes in The Celebrity.

2. 2
   appeal toverbtransitive

   To capture someone's attention or curiosity; to make a person care about a subject or thing.

   The documentary interested viewers who normally avoid science programs.

   Can I interest you in a cup of coffee?

   Similarintrigue, fascinate, engage, attract, captivate

   Oppositebore

3. 3
   of notenoununcountable

   The quality of exciting concern or being of importance; the state of mattering to people.

   The findings are of considerable interest to historians.

   Few details in the report were of any interest to the general reader.

   Similarimportance, significance, relevance, concern, consequence

   Oppositeirrelevance, insignificance, unimportance

4. 4
   what you lovenouncountable

   A hobby, subject, or person that attracts and holds someone's attention or affection.

   Among his many interests, chess held a special place.

   She introduced her new romantic interest to her parents.

   Similarhobby, pastime, pursuit, passion

   Note

   Countable where the curiosity itself is not: a person has an interest in Victorian furniture, and Victorian furniture is an interest of theirs. The thing pursued takes the article and the plural, as in my interests or one of my interests. A person can fill the slot too, most often in romantic interest, the stock phrase for a character's love in a story or film.

5. 5
   loan chargenoununcountable

   The charge paid for borrowing money, or the return earned for lending it, set as a fraction of the amount involved.

   The bank lowered the interest on home loans last month.

   Savers earn interest on the money they keep in the account.

   Note

   Borrower and lender see one payment from opposite sides: it is a cost to the first and a return to the second. It is normally uncountable and quoted as a fraction of the sum, often by the year, as in an annual interest of 5%. You pay interest on a loan and earn interest on savings. The percentage itself is usually called the rate, as in an interest rate. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 1 fact

   • Interest is a cost to the borrower and a return to the lender. moneyhelper.org.uk
6. 6
   stakenouncountable

   A legal or financial stake, claim, or share that someone holds in a business, property, or other undertaking.

   The two partners hold equal interests in the firm.

   She acquired a controlling interest in the publishing house.

   Similarstake, share, holding, claim, investment

   Note

   The stake sense is countable, which is what makes business interests and competing interests possible. Its best-known compound is conflict of interest. Scientists and politicians must declare one when a private stake could sway their public judgment. Business interests can also mean the people holding the stakes, as when Christian Wolmar writes of business interests alienated by one man's push to wring profit from a canal. That use shades toward the lobby-group sense.

7. 7
   business groupnoununcountableplural

   The persons and companies involved in a particular business or cause, considered together as a group.

   The oil interest lobbied hard against the regulation.

   Competing interests clashed over the proposed reform.

   Similarlobby, industry, faction, sector

   Note

   The collective sense names an industry acting as one political body: the iron interest, the cotton interest. David Brandon's The General Strike 1926 (2023) describes the Railway Interest in Parliament as a very powerful lobby in the mid to late nineteenth century. The word is often plural in this sense. When it stands as the name of a particular bloc, it can take a capital. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

   • David Brandon wrote The General Strike 1926: A New History, first published in 2023. api.pageplace.de
   • Brandon describes the Railway Interest in Parliament as a very powerful lobby in the mid to late nineteenth century. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   benefitnouncountable or uncountable

   The advantage or well-being of a person or group; whatever works to their benefit, often used in the plural.

   The judge ruled that staying with her grandmother was in the girl's best interests.

   Newspapers argued that releasing the report was in the national interest.

   Similarbenefit, good, advantage, welfare

   Note

   Most often met in fixed frames with in: in the public interest, in the national interest, in a child's best interests, where the plural is usual after a possessive. Watch the preposition. Something in the public interest is good for the public; something of public interest is merely what people are curious about, closer to the "curiosity" meaning. Courts and governments use the first, gossip columns the second.

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