interest definition

English interest definition

Alternative forms

• enterest (obsolete)
• interess (obsolete)
• intherest (pronunciation spelling, suggesting an Irish accent)

Etymology

From Middle English interest, from Old French interesse and interest (French intérêt), from Medieval Latin interesse, from Latin interesse.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɪntəɹɪst/, /ˈɪntɹɪst/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɪntəɹəst/, /ˈɪntɹəst/, /ˈɪntəɹɛst/, /ˈɪntɹɛst/, /ˈɪntəɹst/

• Audio (GA)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪntəɹɪst, -ɪntɹɪst, -ɪntəɹəst, -ɪntɹəst, -ɪntəɹɛst, -ɪntɹɛst, -ɪntəɹst
• Hyphenation: in‧ter‧est

Noun

interest (usually uncountable, plural interests)

2. (uncountable, finance) The price paid for obtaining, or price received for providing, money or goods in a credit transaction, calculated as a fraction of the amount or value of what was borrowed. [from earlier 16th c.]

   Our bank offers borrowers an annual interest of 5%.

4. (uncountable, finance) Any excess over and above an exact equivalent
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene iii]:

     You shall have your desires with interest

6. (uncountable) A great attention and concern from someone or something; intellectual curiosity. [from later 18th c.]

   He has a lot of interest in vintage cars.

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter X, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:

     The skipper Mr. Cooke had hired at Far Harbor was a God-fearing man with a luke warm interest in his new billet and employer, and had only been prevailed upon to take charge of the yacht after the offer of an emolument equal to half a year's sea pay of an ensign in the navy.

   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Thinks I to myself, “Sol, you're run off your course again. This is a rich man's summer ‘cottage’ and if you don't look out there's likely to be some nice, lively dog taking an interest in your underpinning.”

8. (uncountable) Attention that is given to or received from someone or something.
   • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter VII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

     […] St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close-packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.

   • 2013 August 10, “Standing orders”, in The Economist‎^[1], volume 408, number 8848:

     Over the past few years, however, interest has waxed again. A series of epidemiological studies, none big enough to be probative, but all pointing in the same direction, persuaded Emma Wilmot of the University of Leicester, in Britain, to carry out a meta-analysis. This is a technique that combines diverse studies in a statistically meaningful way.

   • 2013 June 21, Chico Harlan, “Japan pockets the subsidy […]”, in The Guardian Weekly‎^[2], volume 189, number 2, page 30:

     Across Japan, technology companies and private investors are racing to install devices that until recently they had little interest in: solar panels. Massive solar parks are popping up as part of a rapid build-up that one developer likened to an "explosion."

10. (countable) An involvement, claim, right, share, stake in or link with a financial, business, or other undertaking or endeavor.

    When scientists and doctors write articles and when politicians run for office, they are required in many countries to declare any existing conflicts of interest (competing interests).

    I have business interests in South Africa.

    She has an interest in the proceedings, and all stakeholders' interests must be protected.

11. (countable) Something or someone one is interested in.

    Lexicography is one of my interests.

    Victorian furniture is an interest of mine.

    The main character's romantic interest will be played by a non-professional actor.

13. (uncountable) Condition or quality of exciting concern or being of importance.
    • 1809, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Friend, Essay VIII:

      The conscience, indeed, is already violated when to moral good or evil we oppose things possessing no moral interest.

14. (obsolete, rare) Injury, or compensation for injury; damages.
    • 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

      How can this infinite beauty, power and goodnes admit any correspondencie or similitude with a thing so base and abject as we are, without extreme interest and manifest derogation from his divine greatnesse?

15. (usually in the plural) The persons interested in any particular business or measure, taken collectively.

    Coordinate terms: industry, trust, syndicate

    the iron interest;  the cotton interest

Synonyms

• (fraction of the amount or value of what was borrowed): cost of money, oker

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

interest (third-person singular simple present interests, present participle interesting, simple past and past participle interested)

1. To engage the attention of; to awaken interest in; to excite emotion or passion in, in behalf of a person or thing.

   It might interest you to learn that others have already tried that approach.

   Action films don't really interest me.

2. (obsolete, often impersonal) To be concerned with or engaged in; to affect; to concern; to excite.
   • 1633, John Ford, Perkin Warbeck:

     Or rather, gracious sir, / Create me to this glory, since my cause / Doth interest this fair quarrel.

3. (obsolete) To cause or permit to share.
   • 1594–1597, Richard Hooker, edited by J[ohn] S[penser], Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, […], London: […] Will[iam] Stansby [for Matthew Lownes], published 1611, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     The mystical communion of all faithful men is such as maketh every one to be interested in those precious blessings which any one of them receiveth at God's hands.

Antonyms

• bore
• disinterest

Derived terms

• interested
• interesting

Translations

Further reading

• "interest" in Raymond Williams, Keywords (revised), 1983, Fontana Press, page 171.

Anagrams

• Steinert, ernstite, inertest, insetter, interset, sternite, tres-tine, trientes

Dutch interest definition

Alternative forms

• interesse (obsolete)
• intrest

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.) Doublet of interesse.

Pronunciation

• Audio

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Noun

interest m (plural interesten, diminutive interestje n)

1. (finance) interest

Synonyms

• rente

Descendants

• Negerhollands: interesse
• → Papiamentu: interest (dated)

Latin interest definition

Verb

interest

1. third-person singular present active indicative of intersum

References

• “interest”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “interest”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• interest in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette

Middle French interest definition

Noun

interest m (plural interests)

1. interest (great attention and concern from someone or something)