lend-lease
noun
Simple meaning
The transfer of goods and services to an ally to aid in a common cause.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
lehndleesSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈlɛndlis
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.
noun
The transfer of goods and services to an ally to aid in a common cause
historical
A program under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom (and British Commonwealth), Free France, the Republic of China, and later the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, and materiel between 1941 and August 1945.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Typical Use
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The transfer of goods and services to an ally to aid in a common cause
Used this way, lend-lease is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use lend-lease
- “Lend-lease during World War II was extremely generous.”noun
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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.