leased

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of lease.

   The city leased the empty warehouse to a theater company for a dollar a year.

   The router had leased the same IP address to two laptops, knocking both offline.

   Note

   One spelling serves both past forms: the firm leased the land, and the land has been leased for years. The verb runs in both directions, so to or from shows the side: the landlord leased the flat to her, and she leased it from him. In networking the dealing is between machines: a router has leased an address to a device for a while.

2. 2
   adjective

   Handed over to another party for use under the terms of a lease.

   Leased equipment must be returned in good condition when the term ends.

   Most of the airline's fleet is leased rather than owned outright.

   Oppositeowned

   Note

   Legal writing applies it to whole enterprises, not just a flat or a machine. James Schouler's A Treatise on the Law of Bailments (1880) likens a railway leased for a term, with its tracks, rolling stock and goodwill, to a ship put under charter-party: the property is worked by someone else for a fixed period while ownership stays where it was.

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