RENT, participle passive of rend. Torn asunder; split or burst by violence; torn.

RENT, noun [from rend.

1. A fissure; a break or breach made by force; as a rent made in the earth, in a rock or in a garment.

2. A schism; a separation; as a rent in the church.

RENT, verb transitive To tear. [See Rend.]

RENT, verb intransitive To rant. [Not in use.]

RENT, noun

A sum of money, or a certain amount of other valuable thing, issuing yearly from lands or tenements; a compensation or return, in the nature of an acknowledgment, for the possession of a corporeal inheritance.

RENTs, at common law, are of three kinds; rent-service, rent-charge, and rent-seek. Rent-service is when some corporal service is incident to it, as by fealty and a sum of money; rent-charge is when the owner of the rent has no future interest or reversion expectant in the land, but the rent is reserved in the deed by a clause of distress for rent in arrear; rent-seek, dry rent is rent reserved by deed, but without any clause of distress. There are also rents of assize, certain established rents of free-holders and copy-holders of manors, which cannot be varied; called also quit-rents. These when payable in silver, are called white rents, in contradistinction to rents reserved in work or the baser metals, called black rents, or black mail. Rack-rent is a rent of the full value of the tenement, or near it. A fee farm rent is a rent-charge issuing out of an estate in fee, of at least one fourth of the value of the lands at the time of its reservation.

RENT, verb transitive

1. To lease; to grant the possession and enjoyment of lands or tenements for a consideration in the nature of rent The owner of an estate or house rents it to a tenant for a term of years.

2. To take and hold by lease the possession of land or a tenement, for a consideration in the nature of rent The tenant rents his estate for a year.

RENT, verb intransitive To be leased, or let for rent; as, an estate or a tenement rents for five hundred dollars a year.