loans

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of loan.

   She consolidated her car and home loans into a single monthly payment.

   Several small loans helped the cooperative survive its first winter.

   Note

   The plural covers most of the noun's meanings: acts of lending, sums borrowed, and the contracts that bind them. One plural is easy to miss. In Northern England and Scotland a loan is also a stretch of uncultivated ground near a village or farmhouse, so loans there can be places rather than debts. The spelling is also shared with the verb form: someone takes out loans, and a bank loans.

2. 2
   verbcolloquialUS

   Third-person singular simple present of loan.

   Our neighbor loans us his ladder every time the gutters need cleaning.

   The credit union loans money to local farmers at a reduced rate.

   Note

   A present-tense form that readily takes two objects. In "loans us his ladder", both the recipient and the thing lent follow the verb. It also works with a recipient introduced by to, as in loans money to farmers. The verb is informal and usually American, standing in for lend. In formal writing, lends is the safer choice.

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