You can picture 'rent' as money handed over regularly in return for the use of something that belongs to someone else — you don't own it, but for a fee you get to live in it or use it for a while. (A quite separate, unrelated 'rent' means a tear or rip; that one comes from 'rend'.)

可以想成定期把錢交出去,換來「暫時使用別人東西」的權利——那東西不是你的,但付了錢你就能住進去或用一陣子。(另外還有一個完全不相干、同樣拼作 rent 的字,意思是「撕裂、破洞」,那個來自 rend,屬於另一條字源。)

From the word’s history

The payment sense is from Old French rente 'payment due, income', from Vulgar Latin rendita / Latin reddita 'given back, paid', past participle of reddere 'to give back'. So rent is at root 'what is given back regularly in return for use'.

「租金」這一支來自古法文 rente(該付的款、收入),源自拉丁文 reddita(交還、付出),是 reddere(交還)的過去分詞。所以 rent 的根意就是「為了使用而定期交出去的那筆錢」。

etymonline.com/word/rent; en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rente

登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。

原始詞典資料15 筆記錄

以下是外部詞典記錄的用法,摘錄並精簡格式,我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的;有些用法可能上面已經講過了。

Rentname

  • 1

    A surname.

rentnoun詞源 1/ˈɹɛnt/

  • 1

    A payment made by a tenant at intervals in order to lease a property.

    • I am asking £300 a week rent.
    • This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything.
  • 2

    A similar payment for the use of a product, equipment or a service.

  • 3

    economicssciencesA profit from possession of a valuable right, as a restricted license to engage in a trade or business.

    • A New York city taxicab license earns more than $10,000 a year in rent.
  • 4

    An object for which rent is charged or paid.

  • 5

    obsoleteIncome; revenue.

    • So bought an annual rent or two, / And liv'd, just as you see I do.
  • 6

    video-gamesAn amount of virtual currency paid by a player to preserve their character, inventory, etc. between gameplay sessions in a multi-user dungeon.

rentverb詞源 1/ˈɹɛnt/

  • 1

    To take a lease of premises in exchange for rent.

    • I rented a house from my friend's parents for a year.
  • 2

    informalTo grant a lease in return for rent.

    • We rented our house to our son's friend for a year.
  • 3

    To obtain or have temporary possession of an object (e.g. a movie) in exchange for money.

    • In Pärnu the beach is closed, but the Neptun cooperative still runs its beachfront shop, renting surfboards and beach chairs.
  • 4

    informalTo be leased or let for rent.

    • The house rents for five hundred dollars a month.

rentnoun詞源 2/ˈɹɛnt/

  • 1

    A tear or rip in some surface.

    • [O]ne streak of copper-coloured light made a narrow rent between sea and sky.
    • The brown paint on the door was so old that the naked wood showed between the rents.
  • 2

    A division or schism.

    • [T]he White House was considering sending Vice President Humphrey to Cairo to patch up the many rents in U.S.—Egyptian relations.

rentadj詞源 2/ˈɹɛnt/

  • 1

    That has been torn or rent; ripped; torn.

    • Indeed, we could clearly make out the arch and stony banks of this second cave, and, from their rent and jagged appearance, discovered that, like the first long passage down which we had passed through the cliff before we reached the quivering spur, it had to all appearance been torn in the bowels of the rock by the terrific force of some explosive gas.
    • Cleopatra is rent by a struggle between her newly-acquired dignity as a queen, and a strong impulse to put out her tongue at him.

這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形:

摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary,已精簡格式;依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用,改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。