A rental is something you pay to use temporarily instead of owning. When your family books a rental car for vacation, you drive it for a few days or weeks, then return it. A rental house or apartment is one that someone else owns, and you pay them monthly to live there.

The word works as both a noun (the thing being rented, like “our beach rental”) and an adjective (describing something available to rent, like “a rental property”). Video stores used to charge a small rental fee so you could borrow a movie for a night. Today, many people rent movies online or rent equipment like skis, bikes, or tools they don't need to own permanently.

Renting makes sense when you need something temporarily or can't afford to buy it outright. A family might rent an expensive pressure washer for an afternoon to clean their driveway, rather than spending hundreds of dollars to buy one they'd rarely use. Students often rent textbooks for a semester instead of buying them. The trade-off is that while renting costs less upfront, you never own what you're paying for, and those payments can add up over time.