borrow
verb
Simple meaning
To receive from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
bahrohSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbɑɹoʊ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it.
To receive money from a bank or other lender under the agreement that the lender will be paid back over time.
Get temporarily
“May I borrow your lawn mower?”
To adopt (an idea) as one's own.
(Upper Midwestern United States, West Midlands, Malaysia, Singapore, proscribed) To lend.
informal
To receive (something, usually of trifling value) from somebody, with little possibility of returning it.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it.
Used this way, borrow is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use borrow
- “May I borrow your lawn mower?”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
The appropriation (of ideas or words etc) from another source.
Someone who receives something on the promise to return it or its equivalent.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A pit created to provide earth that can be used as fill at another site.
The cost of borrowing something.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.