Borrow

Quick meaning: Borrow is a verb meaning To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it.

Meaning

To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it.

More Meanings

1. To receive money from a bank or other lender under the agreement that the lender will be paid back over time.
2. To adopt (an idea) as one's own.
3. (linguistics) To adopt a word from another language.
4. (Upper Midwestern US, West Midlands, Malaysia, Singapore, proscribed) To lend.
5. (ditransitive) To temporarily obtain (something) for (someone).
6. To feign or counterfeit.
7. (arithmetic) In a subtraction, to deduct (one) from a digit of the minuend and add ten to the following digit, in order that the subtraction of a larger digit in the subtrahend from the digit in the minuend to which ten is added gives a positive result.

Example Sentences

to borrow the style, manner, or opinions of another

Dryden’s form is of course borrowed from the ancients

Samson, with all the cunning of a rhetorical master, cornered him. 'Then can my young son borrow me his old rifle?'

“Rosie, borrow me your look looker, I bet my lips are all. Everytime^([sic]) I eat or drink, so quick I gotta fix ’em, yet.”

Word Forms

• borrows
• borrowing
• borrowed
• borrowest
• borrowedst
• borroweth
• boro

Synonyms for borrow

Depending on context, synonyms include adopt, use, creance, desume, scunge, take over.

Antonyms for borrow

Common opposites include lend, return, carry, buy, take, loan.

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include take up, adopt, take over, lend, lending, pay.

Commonly Confused & Compared Words

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