Lexic.us

Definition of Borrow

1. Verb. Get temporarily. "May I borrow your lawn mower?"

Definition of Borrow

1. v. t. To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; -- the opposite of lend.

2. n. Something deposited as security; a pledge; a surety; a hostage.

Definition of Borrow

1. Verb. To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it. ¹

2. Verb. To adopt (an idea) as one's own. ¹

3. Verb. (linguistics) To adopt a word from another language. ¹

4. Verb. (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. ¹

5. Verb. (proscribed) To lend. ¹

6. Verb. (context: double transitive US dialect ) To temporarily obtain (something) for (someone). ¹

7. Noun. (golf) Deviation of the path of a rolling ball from a straight line; slope; slant. ¹

8. Noun. (archaic) A ransom; a pledge or guarantee. ¹

9. Noun. (archaic) A surety; someone standing bail. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Definition of Borrow

1. to take on loan [v -ED, -ING, -S]

Medical Definition of Borrow

1. 1. To receive from another as a loan, with the implied or expressed intention of returning the identical article or its equivalent in kind; the opposite of lend. 2. To take (one or more) from the next higher denomination in order to add it to the next lower; a term of subtraction when the figure of the subtrahend is larger than the corresponding one of the minuend. 3. To copy or imitate; to adopt; as, to borrow the style, manner, or opinions of another. "Rites borrowed from the ancients." (Macaulay) "It is not hard for any man, who hath a Bible in his hands, to borrow good words and holy sayings in abundance; but to make them his own is a work of grace only from above." (Milton) 4. To feign or counterfeit. "Borrowed hair." "The borrowed majesty of England." (Shak) 5. To receive; to take; to derive. "Any drop thou borrowedst from thy mother." (Shak) To borrow trouble, to be needlessly troubled; to be overapprehensive. Origin: OE. Borwen, AS. Borgian, fr. Borg, borh, pledge; akin to D. Borg, G. Borg; prob. Fr. Root of AS. Beorgan to protect. 95. See 1st Borough. Source: Websters Dictionary (01 Mar 1998)

Lexicographical Neighbors of Borrow

Literary usage of Borrow

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. United States Supreme Court Reports by Lawyers Co-operative Publishing Company, United States Supreme Court (1912)
"That the answer is insufficient, because the defendants, in their corporate capacity, had a right to borrow money, upon a proper vote of their citizens, ..."

2. The Dictionary of National Biography by Sidney Lee (1908)
"Still borrow remained unchanged. His strong individuality asserted itself in ... Probably borrow was not a scientific philologist in the modern sense of the ..."

3. Macmillan's Magazine by David Masson, George Grove, John Morley, Mowbray Morris (1882)
"George borrow was unquestionably the hero of his time some thirty or forty ... borrow, like Goethe, indulged in the love of mystery, but that love in the ..."

4. The Quarterly Review by John Gibson Lockhart, George Walter Prothero, William Gifford, Sir John Taylor Coleridge, Whitwell Elwin, William Macpherson, Baron Rowland Edmund Prothero Ernle, Sir William Smith (1901)
"[The poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym.] Edited by Owen Jones and William Owen (William Owen Pughe). London, 1789. 2. Wild Wales. By George borrow. New edition. ..."

5. The Literature of Roguery by Frank Wadleigh Chandler (1907)
"borrow | HE observer of things as they are may use them in art sympathetically or satirically. He may coin reality to pass current, or else to disgust with ..."

6. A Survey of English Literature 1780-1880 by Oliver Elton (1920)
"Doubtless borrow showed off before his unlettered hearers, and half-bored, ... His tirades against the Pope have the same effect; borrow for some reason ..."

7. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary by Joseph Story (1891)
"The next is the power of Congress " to borrow money on the credit of the United States." This power seems indispensable to the sovereignty and existence of ..."

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