borrow
borrow Lexical Profile
borrow Game Scores & Validity
• verb
To take and use something belonging to someone else with the intention of returning it.
"Students with a valid library card may borrow up to ten books at a time."
To obtain money from a person, bank, or financial institution under an agreement to pay it back later, typically with interest.
"The small business had to borrow funds from a local credit union to finance its expansion."
To adopt and use a word, idea, or artistic style from another language, culture, or person.
"English has continued to borrow vocabulary from dozens of languages around the world."
To take a unit of value from the next higher denomination column in order to subtract a larger digit from a smaller one (in arithmetic subtraction).
"When subtracting 18 from 42, you must borrow ten from the tens column."
• noun
Soil, gravel, or sand excavated from one location to provide fill material for construction at another site.
"The civil engineers tested the quality of the borrow before using it to build the highway embankment."
British In golf, the lateral deviation of a putt caused by the slope or contour of the green.
"She misjudged the borrow on the eighteenth green and watched her putt roll just past the cup."
Word Nuance & Usage
"Borrow" means to take something temporarily from someone else, whereas "lend" means to give something temporarily to someone else (e.g., "Can I borrow your pen?" vs. "Can you lend me your pen?").
• Rhymes for borrow
Word Origin & Etymology
From Middle English borwen, from Old English borgian ('to lend, be surety for, borrow'), derived from borg ('pledge, security, loan'), from Proto-Germanic *burgōną ('to protect, secure').