(borrows, borrowing, borrowed)
Frequency: The word is one of the 3000 most common words in English.
1.
If you borrow something that belongs to someone else, you take it or use it for a period of time, usually with their permission.
Can I borrow a pen please?...
He wouldn't let me borrow his clothes.
? lend
VERB: V n, V n
2.
If you borrow money from someone or from a bank, they give it to you and you agree to pay it back at some time in the future.
Morgan borrowed ?5,000 from his father to form the company 20 years ago...
It's so expensive to borrow from finance companies...
He borrowed heavily to get the money together.
VERB: V n from n, V from n, V, also V n
3.
If you borrow a book from a library, you take it away for a fixed period of time.
I couldn't afford to buy any, so I borrowed them from the library.
VERB: V n from n
4.
If you borrow something such as a word or an idea from another language or from another person's work, you use it in your own language or work.
I borrowed his words for my book's title...
Their engineers are happier borrowing other people's ideas than developing their own.
VERB: V n, V n
5.
Someone who is living on borrowed time or who is on borrowed time has continued to live or to do something for longer than was expected, and is likely to die or be stopped from doing it soon.
Perhaps that illness, diagnosed as fatal, gave him a sense of living on borrowed time.
PHRASE: V inflects