rent

For the verb: "to rend"

Simple Past:	rent
Past Participle:	rent

Multiple Entries:
  rent    rend  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
rent1

▶noun

• 1 a tenant's regular payment to a landlord for the use of property or land.

• 2 a sum paid for the hire of equipment.

▶verb pay someone for the use of.

■ let someone use (something) in return for payment.

■ N. Amer. be let or hired out at a specified rate.

– derivatives
rentability noun,
rentable adjective.

– origin ME: from OFr. rente, from a root shared by render.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
rent2

▶noun a large tear in a piece of fabric.

– origin C16: from obs. rent ‘pull to pieces’, var. of rend.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
rent3

past and past participle of rend.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
rend/rend/

▶verb (past and past part. rent) literary

• 1 tear to pieces.

  ■ archaic wrench violently.

• 2 cause great distress to.

– phrases
rend the air sound piercingly.
rend one's garments (or hair) tear one's clothes (or pull one's hair out) as a sign of extreme grief of distress.

– origin OE rendan, rel. to Mid. Low Ger. rende.