Interest

How to spell interest

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce interest

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does interest mean?

1. nounA feeling of wanting to learn about or pay attention to something.
2. nounMoney paid regularly for the use of borrowed funds, or earned on savings.
3. verbTo attract someone's curiosity or attention.

Interest in a sentence

• noun

  She showed a keen interest in local history.

• noun

  The bank charges a high rate of interest on the loan.

• verb

  The new project might interest the whole design team.

• noun

  His interest in cycling grew after the holiday.

• noun

  Her savings account earns very little interest these days.

• verb

  These films tend to interest younger audiences.

Where does interest come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin interest, a verb form meaning 'it makes a difference' or 'it concerns', built from inter, meaning 'between' or 'among', and esse, meaning 'to be'. In medieval Latin the noun interesse was used in a legal and financial sense to mean compensation for a loss or the right someone held in something, and from there it came to name the charge paid for the use of borrowed money. English took the word in during the 1400s through Old French, where the early meanings clustered around legal claims, shares, and the money owed on a loan. Only later, in the 1600s, did the familiar sense of mental curiosity or attention develop, the feeling that something concerns you or makes a difference to you. The spelling keeps the buried Latin esse hidden inside the unstressed middle, which is exactly why the second e is so easy to drop or swap when writing 'in-ter-est' quickly.

How the word is built

• inter- (between)
• est (from Latin esse: to be); literally 'it is between' or 'it concerns'