interest
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.
Example
“Our bank offers borrowers an annual interest of 5%.”
Other meanings
Any excess over and above an exact equivalent
A great attention and concern from someone or something; intellectual curiosity.
“He has a lot of interest in vintage cars.”
Synonyms
- involvement
Related words
- counterinterest
- hyperinterest
- interestless
- noninterest
- subinterest
- by-interest
- legitimate interest
- rate of interest
- interest-bearing
- interest-free
- interest rate
- interest-sensitive
Example sentences
Word history
From Latin "intersum".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “interest” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.