borrowing

B2 · Upper Intermediate Uncountable noun

n. money that a person, company, or government has taken as a loan.

n. the amount of money obtained through loans, often referring to the total debt of an entity.

“Government borrowing rose sharply during the economic crisis.”

“Economists warned that excessive borrowing to fund short-term projects would inevitably lead to a credit downgrade.”

C1 · Advanced Countable noun Linguistics Academic · Technical

n. a word that a language takes from another language.

n. a word or phrase adopted from one language into another; a loanword.

“The word 'café' is a common borrowing from French used in English.”

“The study explores how lexical borrowings from Arabic were integrated into the Spanish language during the medieval period.”

C2 · Proficiency Humorous · Slang

v. a funny or polite way to talk about stealing something from a shop.

v. a euphemistic term for shoplifting or theft.

“He got caught doing a bit of 'borrowing' from the local supermarket.”

“The security guard was unimpressed by the teenager's claim that he was merely borrowing the headphones without paying for them.”