Renting

How to spell renting

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce renting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does renting mean?

1. verbPaying a regular sum to use property or equipment, or letting it out to someone for such payment.

Renting in a sentence

• They are renting a flat near the station while they look for a house to buy.

• The company saved money by renting the machinery instead of buying it outright.

Where does renting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends ultimately from the Latin verb reddere, meaning 'to give back' or 'to render', whose feminine past participle reddita came to mean 'a thing paid' or 'a sum rendered'. This passed into Old French as rente, describing regular income or a payment owed on land, and English took it up around the thirteenth century. The original sense was the periodic payment a tenant gave to a landholder, and only later did the verb 'to rent' come to mean both paying for the use of property and letting it out for such payment. The form 'renting' is simply the verb with the regular -ing ending; because the root rent ends in a single t after a short vowel, the t is doubled before -ing, which is the small spelling point worth remembering.

How the word is built

• rent (from Latin reddita: payment owed)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)