borrow

verb (I, T)

1 to use something that belongs to someone else and that you must give back to them later: Can I borrow your pen for a minute? | borrow sth from sb BrE: You are allowed to borrow 6 books from the library at a time. | borrow heavily (=borrow a lot of money): They borrowed heavily from the bank to start their new business.

-compare lend (1), loan 2 (1)

2 to take or copy someone's ideas, words etc and use them in your own work, language etc: It is obvious that many ideas in the book have been borrowed.

(+ from): English borrows words from many languages.

3 borrow trouble AmE informal to worry about something unnecessarily

-see also: be living on borrowed time live 1 (14) USAGE NOTE: BORROW WORD CHOICE: borrow, lend, loan, hire, rent, get/have the use of, let somebody use You borrow something from another person who is willing to lend it to you: I borrowed some money from my sister (= my sister lent me some money/I was lent some money by my sister). You will hear some native speakers of English saying things like My sister borrowed me the money, but this is not considered to be correct In American English loan is often like lend: The current administration has loaned this country a billion dollars. In British English loan (v) is usually used for when someone lends a possession for a long time to a museum etc. so that everybody can see it. If you borrow money you have to pay it back later, and you may have to pay for the use of it as well, if you have borrowed it from a bank rather than a friend. If you borrow a car/video etc. you give it back afterwards but you do not usually pay for the use of it, otherwise you would say hire or rent. See hire WORD CHOICE. People do not usually use borrow or lend / loan for something that cannot be moved such as a room, house, or piece of land. If you pay for using this sort of thing you hire or rent it, otherwise you get the use of it from someone who is willing to let you use it: Could you let us use this hall? | Could we have the use of this hall?