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New lease of life

Reader question:

What does "new lease" mean in "Old hotel gets new lease on life"?

My comments:

"New lease on life" is an American idiom meaning rejuvenation. The British prefer to say "new lease of life."

The old hotel getting a new lease on life means the hotel is attracting guests again after a period of little business.

If we were talking about the hotel getting a "new lease", then that would mean the hotel's managers have obtained a new rent deal from the property owners allowing them to run the hotel for another number of years after the old agreement expired. Lease is the legal agreement that allows you to use a building, or for that matter, a car, for a specified period of time.

However, "new lease of life", or "on life" as Americans would have it (as though they treat life as a property, too), means rejuvenation. If people have a new lease of life, they are once again healthy, active, buoyant and happy after having been, say, ill, weak, tired, low in spirits and generally lifeless. Office holders, for example, seem to get a new lease of life from vacations. Office workers, you see, love to get away from the work they love. If they are fresh in the New Year, they look tired and dull come March, but give them a trip to Africa (or wherever) and they return to the office re-born. The bounce in their steps returns and they become interesting again to talk to. They are so full of energy that sometimes bosses feel compelled to assign them to the night shift right away.... Ah, well.