borrow
Verbborrows, borrowing, borrowed
Noun pluralborrows
Often confused with lend
Formsborrows, borrowing, borrowed
Pluralborrows
- 1
- 2To receive money from a bank or other lender under an agreement to pay it back over time.
Many families borrow heavily to cover college costs.
She borrowed from the bank to start her business.
UsageBorrow from a bank or person; borrow against something you own, such as a house.
Oppositelend
- 3To adopt an idea from another source and use it as one's own.
The director borrowed heavily from classic film techniques.
Designers borrow concepts from nature all the time.
UsageUsually borrow from a source, often with heavily: the film borrows heavily from old westerns.
Similaradopt, appropriate, take, copy, lift
Note
Here what changes hands is a style, a form or an opinion, and nothing is expected back. Milton, in 1649, drew a line that still matters. Anyone with a Bible can borrow good words, he wrote, but making them one's own is "a work of grace".
- 4To adopt a word from another language into one's own.
Many languages borrow vocabulary from English.
English borrowed "kindergarten" directly from German.
UsageA word taken this way is a borrowing or a loanword: English borrowed "sushi" from Japanese.
Note
Linguists use the verb for words that cross from one language into another, and the adopted word is usually reshaped to fit the sounds and grammar of its new home. The verb also stretches to jargon. Eva Corlett (2024) traces the Antarctic word "fingies" to FNGs, "a borrowed military abbreviation", so a borrowing can also move from one corner of a language into another.
- 5To temporarily obtain something on behalf of another person.
I'll borrow some chairs for the guests this evening.
He borrowed a projector for the whole team to use.
UsageBorrow something for someone is the clearest pattern; "borrow me a ladder" can be heard as "lend me a ladder".
Note
Two objects follow the verb here, and the first names the person who benefits. A witness in 1681 says he "borrowed him a horse in the town".
- 6
- 7In subtraction, to deduct one from a digit of the minuend and add ten to the next lower digit so that subtracting a larger digit yields a positive result.
To compute 52 minus 27, you borrow ten for the ones column.
The student borrowed from the hundreds digit to complete the calculation.
UsageYou borrow from the next column. The same step is also called regrouping.
Similarregroup
Note
Schoolroom arithmetic built this step on a metaphor: one place gives up a unit, and the next column receives ten so its subtraction can go through. The same step is also called regrouping, a term that describes what actually happens to the number. Borrow remains the everyday word in talk about subtraction, and the two terms name a single procedure.
- 8To briefly take a person away from their current activity in order to speak with them or get their help.
Could I borrow you for a quick word after the meeting?
She borrowed him from the kitchen to fix the printer.
UsageTakes a person as object, mostly in requests: can I borrow you for a minute?
- 9In golf, the sideways deviation of a rolling ball's path caused by the slope of the green.
The caddie advised allowing for a foot of borrow on the long putt.
A subtle borrow near the cup pulled the ball off line.
Similarbreak
Note
Golfers coined this term for the break a slope puts on a rolling ball. Harry Vardon, in The Complete Golfer (1905), still marks it with "as we term it". Players are said to take borrow from the side of a slope.
- 10To aim a putt off the straight line so the slope of the green carries the ball back toward the hole.
He read the green carefully and decided to borrow two feet to the left.
Players often borrow more on steeply sloping greens.
Note
Golfers use the verb with a measurement attached: a player borrows two feet to the left, or borrows more on a steeply sloping green, naming how far from the hole the putt is aimed. The same word also serves as the noun for the break, so a player can read the borrow on a putt and then borrow to match it.
- 11In Rust and some other languages, the temporary transfer of a value's ownership to another region of code, which later returns it.
A mutable borrow in Rust prevents any other access until it ends.
The function takes a borrow rather than taking ownership of the string.
Similarreference
Note
Programmers use this noun for temporary access. Under Rust's ownership rules, code can borrow a value without owning it, and the borrow checker makes sure no borrow outlives or conflicts with another. Noun and verb travel together: Daniel Arbuckle's Rust Quick Start Guide (2018) explains that existing borrows forbid moving a value or mutably borrowing it.
- 12To feign or counterfeit; to put on a false show of something.
The con artist could borrow sincerity at will, fooling even careful investors.
She borrowed an innocence she did not possess and won the jury over.
Similarfeign, affect, fake, assume, counterfeit
Note
The pretended kind of borrowing lives mostly in the participle: Spenser's "borrowed hair" and Shakespeare's "the borrowed majesty of England". What is borrowed in this way is worn as if it were one's own. As a result, the adjective carries a charge of falseness: a borrowed dignity is one that does not really belong to the person displaying it.
- 13To give someone the temporary use of something; to lend.
Hey, could you borrow me your ladder this afternoon?
My cousin borrowed me his notes, so I can study for the exam lah.
UsageWidely treated as a mistake; in writing, use lend: lend me your ladder.
Note
Here the verb runs the other way: the owner who hands something over is the one who borrows it, just as lend would work. Michael Chiang's Army Daze (1987) has "Can borrow me your cloth?" The use is heard in the Upper Midwest of the United States, England's West Midlands, Malaysia and Singapore.
- 14An excavated pit from which soil, gravel, or other fill is dug for use in construction elsewhere.
Engineers located a borrow close to the embankment to cut hauling costs.
Rainwater collected in the abandoned borrow beside the new bypass.
Similarpit
Note
Builders clipped borrow pit to this single word. It names the hole where earth, gravel or clay is dug so that it can serve as fill elsewhere, such as in a dam or an embankment. The material is borrowed from one site to build another. It counts like any noun: The Canadian Mining and Metallurgical Bulletin (1979) mentions clays taken "from local borrows".
- 15To obtain the release of a person held in prison, as by ransom or pledge.
The young lord swore he would borrow his true love from the prison tower before dawn.
No gold could borrow the captured knight from his enemy's keep.
Similarransom, free, release, rescue
Note
This meaning now survives mainly in ballads, where the rescuer does the borrowing, not the prisoner. The captive in "Young Beichan" sings "if ony maiden would borrow me". It keeps the old meaning of Old English borgian, "to pledge surety for". To borrow someone was to stand guarantee for their freedom, as the person standing bail did.
- 16A ransom paid for a captive; also a pledge or guarantee given as security.
The earl set the borrow at a thousand crowns for the captured baron.
He left his sword as a borrow against his promised return.
Note
A separate Old English noun lies behind this sense: borh, "pledge", from the same Germanic root as the verb. A borrow was whatever was held as security, whether a ransom or a token left against a promise.
- 17A person who stands as surety for another, taking on responsibility or standing bail on their behalf.
The merchant served as borrow for his apprentice's good conduct.
No borrow would come forward to guarantee the stranger's debts.
Note
Here the pledge is a person. Like the "ransom, pledge" sense, this comes from the Old English noun for a pledge, and it names someone held or vouched as a guarantee. Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819) uses the plural this way: "ye may retain as borrows" the speaker's own priests.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
From Middle English borwen, from Old English borgian ("to borrow, lend, pledge surety for"), from Proto-Germanic *burgōną ("to pledge, take care of") and ultimately Proto-Indo-European *bʰergʰ- ("to take care"). It is related to Dutch borgen and German borgen, and to Old English beorgan ("to save, preserve").
From Middle English borwe, from Old English borh, from Proto-Germanic *burgōną ("to borrow, lend"), which is related to Etymology 1.