interest

English

Alternative forms

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/, /ˈɪntɹɛst/
  • (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)

  1. (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%.
  2. (uncountable, finance) Any excess over and above an exact equivalent
  3. (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[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
      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.”
  4. (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, 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, 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."
  5. (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.
  6. (countable) Something which, or someone whom, 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.
  7. (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.
  8. (obsolete, rare) Injury, or compensation for injury; damages.
  9. (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
  10. (historical, usually attributive) a genre of factual short films, generally more amusing than informative, especially those not covered by a more specific genre label
    • 1921 Davidson Boughey, The Film Industry (London : Sir Isaac Pitman) p. 76
      By interest films is meant a variety of subjects which cannot be classified under such recognized headings as fiction, travel, or topical. They include wonderful inventions, little known industries, applied art, feats of engineering, and other events capable of effective illustration.
    • 1924 March 5, Kevin O'Higgins, “CENSORSHIP OF FILMS ACT, 1923”, in Dáil debates, volume 6, number 22:
      The arrangements made ensured that the total cost of censorship could be kept down to one-fifth of a penny per foot of film censored (and even one-tenth of a penny per foot in cases of Topical, Travel, Interest and Educational Films).
    • 1939 March-April, J. Neill-Brown, "The Industry's Front Page" The Cine-Technician (London) Vol. 4 no. 20 p. 200
      At the top of Charing Cross Road is the "Tatler," which has specialised for a long time in a general sort of program, built up of about 15 minutes of news, a cartoon (sometimes two), an interest picture, occasionally a comedy, and nearly always a documentary.

Synonyms

Hyponyms
Financial terms
Non-financial terms

Derived terms
Terms derived from interest
Financial terms
  • deferred interest bond
  • earnings before interest and taxes
  • indication of interest
  • insurable interest
  • interest cover
  • interest expense
  • pooling of interest
Non-financial terms

Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § 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

Derived terms

Translations

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

Anagrams

Dutch

Alternative forms

Etymology

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

Pronunciation
  • Audio(file)

Noun

interest m (plural interesten, diminutive interestje n)

  1. (finance) interest

Synonyms

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

Latin

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

Noun

interest m (plural interests)

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