borrowing

English

Etymology

From borrow +‎ -ing.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbɔrəwɪŋ/
• Hyphenation: bor‧row‧ing

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Verb

borrowing

1. present participle and gerund of borrow

   She is borrowing my pen.

2. (Can we verify⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (slang, crime, euphemistic) Shoplifting.

Noun

borrowing (countable and uncountable, plural borrowings)

1. An instance of something being borrowed.
   • January 1834, Horace Binney, Speech on the Question of the Removal of the Deposites

     Subscriptions, borrowings of money, taxings of the citizens and their property, may all be valid, as operations by virtue of laws for the government of the City […]

2. (linguistics) A borrowed word, adopted from a foreign language; loanword.
   • 2017 March 25, Lili Bidwell, “Anglish: A Brexiteer’s lingua franca?”, in The Cambridge Student‎^[1], archived from the original on 31 January 2021:

     Whilst you would be forgiven for thinking this statement comes straight from the latest UKIP manifesto, it is in fact a quotation from The Anglish Moot, a fan-page promoting the use of the 'Anglish' language — that is, English with all foreign borrowings stripped away.

Derived terms

• borrowing card
• false borrowing
• learned borrowing
• pseudo-borrowing
• reborrowing
• semantic borrowing
• semi-learned borrowing

Translations

loanword — see loanword