Borrow
verbTo take and use something belonging to someone else with the intention of returning it.
How to spell borrow
6 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce borrow
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does borrow mean?
- verbTo take and use something belonging to someone else with the intention of returning it.
Borrow in a sentence
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She had to borrow a pen from the colleague at the next desk.
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They decided to borrow money from the bank to cover the deposit.
Where does borrow come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
Borrow comes straight from the Old English verb borgian, which meant 'to lend, to be surety for, or to take on a pledge'. That word grew from the Germanic root borg, tied to the idea of a security or guarantee, and it is closely related to the Old English beorgan, meaning 'to protect or keep safe'. The original notion was financial trust: you handed over something as a pledge, then received goods or money against it. Over the centuries the meaning narrowed and flipped slightly, so that today it describes the act of taking rather than giving on trust, while the lender now does the 'lending'. The same protective root survives in 'borough' (a fortified, protected town) and in the surname element 'burgh', which is why the spelling keeps that solid double r in the middle.
How the word is built
- borrow (from Old English borgian: to give a pledge); single native root, no affixes
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