renting

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of rent.

   They are renting office space downtown while their own building is renovated.

   Renting tools instead of buying them saved the contractors a lot of money.

   Note

   One spelling covers both sides of the deal. It can describe the tenant who takes a lease or, informally, the owner who grants one, and it also covers hiring an object such as a movie. Informally it can even take the property as its subject: the flat is renting quickly. It has nothing to do with the rent that is a past form of rend, whose participle is rending.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or instance of hiring something out, or taking it for use, in exchange for payment; a rental.

   The renting of office space downtown has increased since the new firms arrived.

   City regulations now limit the short-term renting of private homes to tourists.

   Similarleasing, letting, hiring

   Note

   This sense is a true noun, unlike the verb form used as a gerund. It takes an article, attaches its object with of (the renting of office space), and can be counted, with the plural rentings. Compare a gerund such as renting tools saved money, where the object follows directly and no article is possible.

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