borrow
/ˈbɒrəʊ
/verb [with object]
1Take and use (something belonging to someone else) with the intention of returning it: he had borrowed a car from one of his colleagues...
- Recovering from knee replacement surgery in Lismore Base Hospital, Elaine Avery is well aware of the need to return borrowed orthopaedic equipment when it is no longer needed.
- Mr O'Brien told investigators in 1975 that on the day Hoffa vanished, he borrowed a car belonging to Giacolone's son to run some errands.
- Meanwhile, retired dairy farmer Ted Dibble has vowed to borrow a horse and return to the sport if the Government's anti-hunting proposal becomes law.
Synonyms
take, take for oneself, help oneself to, use as one's own, abscond with, carry off, appropriate, commandeer, abstract;
steal, purloin, shoplift
informal filch, rob, swipe, nab, rip off, lift, ‘liberate’, snaffle, snitch
British informal nick, pinch, half-inch, whip, knock off, nobble, bone, scrump, bag, blag
North American informal heist, glom
Australian/New Zealand informal snavel
West Indian informal tief
archaic crib, hook
1.1Take and use (money) from a person or bank under an agreement to pay it back later: to meet this deficit the government has to borrow money [no object]: lower interest rates will make it cheaper for individuals to borrow...
- The reason they can do that is that trading banks actually borrow large sums of money, and they are able to put up for taxation purposes the interest they pay on it.
- It is unlikely that the politicians and leaders of the area would empathize with the plight of Sabitri and other such women or children being held at ransom for a paltry sum of money borrowed by labourers.
- Companies need to borrow enormous sums of money to buy back their shares in the market.
1.2Take and use (a book) from a library for a fixed period of time: you could easily have borrowed a book from your local library...
- At the end of the 20-30 minute session, mothers are able to peruse parenting resources provided by the library and borrow picture books with the babies.
- Space is all very well, in the right place, but people come to libraries mainly to borrow books.
- She pointed out that it costs nothing for teenagers to join the library and borrow books, CDs, videos and tapes from the new multimedia section for their age group.
1.3Take (a word or idea) from another language, person, or source and use it in one’s own language or work: the term is borrowed from Greek...
- Most English words were borrowed from some other language.
- The idea was borrowed from Vancouver, where a help meter in front of a store proved so popular with customers that panhandlers stopped begging there.
- Deconstructivism ideas are borrowed from the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
Synonyms
adopt, take on, take in, take over, acquire, embrace
2 Golf Allow (a certain distance) when playing a shot to compensate for sideways motion of the ball due to a slope or other irregularity.
noun Golf
A slope or other irregularity on a golf course which must be compensated for when playing a shot.I played the round in the company of an ancient caddie, unusually talkative for a Scot, who shaped the sightlines of the present to the borrow of the past....
- Pat's ‘method’ is to read the borrow, adopt the line, and then approach every putt as if it was only six inches.
- This hole provides a challenge: the right is nothing but trouble and the huge green has both slope and borrow to conclude a fine golf hole.
Usage
Some people confuse the two words lend and borrow, which have reciprocal but different meanings: see lend (usage).
Phrases
be (living) on borrowed time
borrow trouble
Origin
Old English borgian 'borrow against security', of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German borgen.