Sublets

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. Allows someone who rents property to lease it again to another person for part or all of the rental period
2. Gives permission to a tenant to rent out the space they occupy to someone else temporarily
3. Transfers the right to occupy a leased property from the original tenant to a second tenant under a sublease agreement

Etymology: "Sublets" is the third-person singular present form of "sublet", so it refers to someone renting out a property they themselves rent from another person. The verb is built from the prefix "sub-", meaning "under" or "below", and the ordinary verb "let", meaning to lease or rent out. Together they describe a lease passed further down a chain, from the original landlord to a tenant and then from that tenant to someone beneath them. The prefix traces back through Latin "sub" to an ancient Indo-European root meaning "up from under," which is also the source of many English words like "subject" and "submarine." The verb "let" is older still in English, an everyday Germanic word for allowing or leasing, so the new compound simply attached a familiar prefix to a familiar verb. The result is a plainly descriptive coinage whose meaning follows directly from its parts.

Synonyms: leases, assigns, rents, tenancies, contracts