From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishborrowbor‧row /ˈbɒrəʊ $ ˈbɑːroʊ, ˈbɔː-/ ●●● S2 W3 verb [intransitive, transitive] 1 BORROWto use something that belongs to someone else and that you must give back to them later → lend, loan Can I borrow your pen for a minute?borrow something from somebody You are allowed to borrow six books from the library at a time. They borrowed heavily (=borrowed a lot of money) from the bank to start their new business. ► Do not confuse borrow and lend (=give someone permission to use something of yours): I borrowed his bike. | Can you lend me your pen?2 COPYto take or copy someone’s ideas, words etc and use them in your own work, language etcborrow something from somebody/something I borrowed my ideas from Eliot’s famous poem ‘The Waste Land’. To borrow a phrase (=use what someone else has said), if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.borrow from English has borrowed words from many languages.3 → borrow trouble → be living on borrowed time at live1(17), → beg, borrow, or steal at beg(8)→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
borrow• The interest payable on a Car Loan is added to the capital amount you have borrowed.• In 1605, five years after ordination, he borrowed a horse, sold it and disappeared for two years.• Last month we were able to borrow a votive candle stand, which stands in the Lady Chapel area.• Companies normally expect to borrow at cheaper rates than ordinary people have to pay.• Can I borrow five pounds off you till next week?• Do not be tempted to borrow from friends or neighbours, nomatterhow desperate you are.• Everything else is borrowed from other places, and it has that transplanted feel to it.• Rogers discovered that his own humor worked better than jokes borrowed from other writers.• Her life was miserable because she could only live in that cycle: borrowing from the trader and selling it to him.• Maxwell had borrowed heavily to finance his business projects.• I wish Steve would buy himself a bike. He's always borrowing mine.• She found the poem in a book she'd borrowed off Mrs Parsons.• By the end of the war the Canadian government had borrowed over $5 billion from its own citizens.• I borrowed this dress from my sister.• Careful as he is to cultivate bankers, Mr Murdoch borrows to avoid being controlled.• Can I borrow your car for the weekend?borrowed heavily• Samurai retainers, too, borrowed heavily.• Most worrying are smaller companies which borrowed heavily but do not have big banks behind them.• And it is what happened to the Republic of Ireland, where successive administrations borrowed heavily for job creation purposes.• During the inflationary period the universe borrowed heavily from its gravitational energy to finance the creation of more matter.• Many firms had borrowed heavily to cover their losses, driving government banks into insolvency.• Many companies had borrowed heavily to cover their losses.From Longman Business Dictionaryborrowbor‧row /ˈbɒrəʊˈbɑːroʊ, ˈbɔː-/ verb [intransitive, transitive] to receive money from a person or organization which you must pay back laterNowhere else in Europe can home-buyers borrow 100% of the purchase price.borrow something from somebodyYour business can borrow money from your pension fund on normal commercial terms. → compare lend→ See Verb tableOrigin borrow Old English borgian 