rent

Less common meanings

5. 5
   income from rightsnouncountable or uncountable

   Income earned simply from holding a valuable right, such as an exclusive license, quota, or charter that limits competition.

   Economists argued that the import quota handed established producers a sizable rent.

   The monopoly's rent came not from effort but from its exclusive charter.

   Note

   Economists borrowed the landlord's word for a different kind of earning: the return from controlling a scarce or legally restricted right, beyond what keeps the resource in its current use. A New York City taxi medallion, valuable because the city limits how many exist, earns rent this way. The full term, economic rent, keeps it apart from the tenant's payment. The profit comes from the barrier to entry rather than from productive work. Source

   Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • Economists extended rent from land income to returns on other scarce resources. economics.utoronto.ca
   • Economic rent includes returns above the amount necessary to keep a resource in its current use. en.wikipedia.org
   • Taxi medallions can be leased; economic rent can be received through lease payments. nyc.gov
   • Restricted taxi-license supply can generate income attributable to the restriction rather than productive work. archives.sfmta.com
6. 6
   a tear (hole)nouncountable

   An opening torn or ripped in a surface, especially cloth.

   The storm left a jagged rent in the sail.

   A rent in the canvas let rainwater into the tent.

   Similartear, rip, split, gash, slit

   Note

   A tear made by force, and writers stretch it well beyond cloth. In D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers (1913), bare wood shows between the rents in an old door's paint. Mary Elizabeth Braddon sees copper light make a narrow rent between sea and sky. It pairs naturally with holes, as in an account of the Tay Bridge's failing iron, "holes and rents." Unlike the landlord's word, it comes from rend. Source

   Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 5 facts

   • D. H. Lawrence wrote Sons and Lovers, first published in 1913. en.wikipedia.org
   • The novel describes bare wood showing between rents in a door's old paint. gutenberg.org
   • Mary Elizabeth Braddon describes copper-coloured light making a narrow rent between sea and sky. gutenberg.org
   • An account of the Tay Bridge's deteriorating iron uses the words "holes and rents." en.wiktionary.org
   • The torn-opening noun derives from rend and has a different origin from the payment noun. en.wiktionary.org
7. 7
   ripped apartverb

   Simple past and past participle of rend.

   A sudden scream rent the silence of the night.

   Lightning had rent the old oak from top to bottom, leaving two blackened halves.

   UsageDon't mix it up with the paying verb, whose forms are rented: a scream rent the air, but they rented an apartment.

8. 8
   splitnouncountable

   A division or schism, especially one splitting a group or community.

   The scandal opened a rent in the party that never fully healed.

   The bitter vote over the merger opened a rent in the union that took a generation to close.

   Similarrift, split, schism, division, breach

   Note

   The figurative tear is a split in a relationship or group, pictured as fabric that might be mended. That is why it pairs with repair verbs. Michael B. Oren writes of the White House considering sending Vice President Humphrey to Cairo to patch up the many rents in U.S.–Egyptian relations. Where schism simply names the split, rent keeps the picture of torn cloth and a hint that the tear might still be sewn shut.

9. 9
   adjective

   Torn or ripped; having been split open.

   Soldiers returned in rent uniforms after the long campaign.

   The rent sails could no longer catch the wind.

   Similartorn, ripped, tattered, ragged

   Oppositeintact, whole

   Note

   The participle turned adjective is now largely literary and most at home with damaged cloth, banners or garments. It also reaches rock and inner states. H. Rider Haggard's cave walls look "rent and jagged," and George Bernard Shaw's Cleopatra is rent by a struggle between queenly dignity and the urge to put out her tongue. With by, it can describe physical tearing or a conflict pulling someone in two.

10. 10
    nounobsoletecountable or uncountable

    Income or revenue; money received as earnings.

    So bought an annual rent or two, / And liv'd, just as you see I do.

    1733, Alexander Pope, [Imitations of Horace]

    Note

    An older, wider meaning covered any income or yield, not just what a tenant hands over. In one of Alexander Pope's imitations of Horace, the speaker who "bought an annual rent or two" was buying himself a yearly income, and the word no longer works that way. Read it so in older texts, but in modern prose rent usually means a payment for the use of something, whether a tenant pays it or a landlord collects it.

11. 11
    nounrare

    An object that is hired out, for which rent is charged or paid.
12. 12
    noun

    In a multi-user dungeon, an amount of virtual currency a player pays to preserve their character, inventory, and progress between gameplay sessions.