c1400 (?a1387) W. Langland Piers Plowman (Huntington HM 137) (1873) C. xi. 265 Let hure be knowe For ryche oþer wel yrented [v.r. rented wel] [etc.].

?1435 in C. L. Kingsford Chrons. London (1905) 67 (MED) Thus in alle the Rewme may men have xv Erles, xv ml. knyhtes and squyers moo thanne be now suffisauntly Rentyd.

a1500 (?a1390) J. Mirk Festial (Gough) (1905) 65 (MED) Lordys and oþer rented men schuld..kepe holy chirch yn pees and rest.

a1500 (c1425) Andrew of Wyntoun Oryg. Cron. Scotl. (Nero) vii. l. 2694 Þe bischopis and þe gret prelatis, And rentyt clerkis of gret statis.

1583 A. Golding tr. J. Calvin Serm. on Deuteronomie cxxxv. 830/1 As these monkes doe, who are wel landed and rented, and..yet for all that they vowe pouertie.

1627 P. Hay Advt. Subj. Scotl. 9 This Prince did purge Granada, Valenza, Sainct Lucar, and Cartagena; and planted diverse Bishops seates, ritchlie rented.

1648 H. Hexham Groot Woorden-boeck Een Rentenier,..a Rented man.

1761 Chron. in Ann. Reg. 107 The jesuits..demand that the houses of the society may be considered in the same light as the regular abbeys and other rented monasteries.

1919 N. Hill Story Sc. Church iii. 51 The Roman monastic orders were divided into two main classes, viz the Rented and the Mendicant. The former possessed land and endowments.

1581 T. Lupton 2nd Pt. Too Good to be True sig. Hiv^v The selling of their corne, cattell, milke, butter, and cheese, with their other profites that doe rise of their olde rented Farmes.

1670 T. Blount Νομο-λεξικον: Law-dict. Gafol-land, alias Gaful-land (Terra censualis), land liable to Tribute or Tax; rented Land, or Land letten for Rent.

a1687 W. Petty Polit. Arithm. (1691) vi. 100 Moreover if rented Lands, and Houses, have increased.

1761 tr. Frederician Code I. i. ii. 132 If they be in a rented house, and if it be not thought convenient to leave them in the same house, that one of the spouses who gave occasion for the separation, shall be obliged to go out of it.

1798 B. Rush Essays 235 His [sc. the German mechanic's] first object is to become a freeholder; and hence we find few of them live in rented houses.

1827 Times 16 Aug. 1/4 (advt.) To be sold..Mabledon House..surrounded with 120 acres of freehold land, and some contiguous rented land may be had with it.

1884 Christian World 19 June 463/4 The stiff starched ‘order of service’, the rented pews, with the odious distinction of free seats.

1894 H. H. Gardener Unofficial Patriot 60 A nasty little rented house without so much as a garden patch to it.

1925 Today's Housewife Feb. 23/1 We do not need to reconcile ourselves to rented dwellings, and feed our longings on vague air-castles.

1958 N.Y. Times 4 Feb. 31/6 Certain types of rented cars sometimes called private livery cabs.

1974 A. Coote & T. Gill Women's Rights vii. 253 (heading) Finding a place to live—rented accommodation.

1995 Evening Sun (Baltimore) 29 Mar. b3/2 The Baltimore County woman accused of allowing her 14-year-old son to live alone in a rented house for more than three months.

2002 V. Coren & C. Skelton Once more, with Feeling xxii. 159 Forced to pick their way over rented tripods, lights cables, waste-bins overflowing with rejected pages of incomprehensible script.

1655 T. Fuller Hist. Waltham-Abby 19 in Church-hist. Brit. This Tenement low-rented yielded annually nine shillings.

1752 Mem. Life & Actions Charles Osborn ii. 19 My mother and I living together, took a low rented house, dismissed our equipage, and subsisted upon the monthly sales of our coach, horses, plate, and jewels.

1787 Times 8 Jan. 4/4 (advt.) Shop and business to dispose of..together with a small low-rented house.

1801 J. Austen Let. 3 Jan. (1995) 67 It used to be lower rented than any other house in the row.

1818 H. B. Fearon Sketches Amer. 284 First-rate brick buildings, all new,..and always high rented.

1834 Tait's Edinb. Mag. New Ser. 1 543/1 His house is, to be sure, dear-rented from its locality.

1876 ‘G. Eliot’ Daniel Deronda I. i. iii. 33 The house..was moderately rented, having no manor attached to it.

1886 Col. Maurice's Let. fr. Donegal 41 The tenants on that particular estate are remarkably low-rented.

1939 M. Spring Rice Working-class Wives viii. 195 The process of ‘filtering-up’, (i.e. people who can afford to do so vacating the lower-rented houses and moving into unsubsidized higher-rented houses) were steady and complete.

1969 Times 11 Sept. 3/1 This aid..would need limits to prevent tenants moving indiscriminately into high-rented properties.

1992 I. Mohan Environmental Issues xxii. 101 However, sixty percent of the families here were said to earn around Rs. 150/ per month in 1971 and live in low rented tenements or in their own ancestral dwellings.

1559 J. Heywood tr. Seneca Troas iii. iii. sig. E.i^v Receyue my kisse and teares poore chylde receyue my rented heare.

1567 G. Turberville tr. G. B. Spagnoli Eglogs ii. f. 15^v There are that to their bloudy boordes our crushed bodies beare, And butcherlike (with greedy teeth) our rented corses teare.

1574 J. Higgins 1st Pt. Mirour for Magistrates Authour f. 36^v Straunge it semes to thee: What he that beares this rentid corps should bee.

1587 M. Grove Pelops & Hippodamia (1878) 78 They royst in silke, when others range the streete in rented rags.

1591 Troublesome Raigne Iohn i. sig. B Scalding sighes blowne from a rented heart.

1595 E. C. Emaricdulfe p. xxviii If euer tongue with heauen inticing cries, If euer words blowne from a rented hart, If euer teares shed from a Louers eyes,..If all of these combinde by Cupids power, My long borne liking to anatomise.

1645 S. Rutherford Tryal & Triumph of Faith xii. 84 They cannot sew up the womans rented heart.

a1763 Byrom Misc. Poems (1773) II. 73 Darkness—and Earthquake—and the rented Rock, And opening Graves—the Prelude to that Pow'r, Which rose in suff'ring Love's momentous Hour.

1792 J. G. W. De Brahm Voice Everlasting Gospel v. 14 On one of these three Parts of the rented Earth is laid open the great Tophet prepared for the King.

1857 ‘W. Triton’ Fisher Boy viii. 123 This thought breaking in upon his troubled spirit, like darting sunbeams through rented clouds, imparted a joyous spring to his ambition.

1986 G. Bowering Delayed Mercy 17 Rented clouds disperse showers on this terrain.