borrow
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "borrow", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "borrow" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "borrow" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
borrow is aEnglishverb. It means: To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it. Pronounced /ˈbɒɹəʊ/. It ranks #7,101 in English word frequency. Often confused with brow and burrow.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | borrow |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈbɒɹəʊ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #7,101 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for borrow is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɒɹəʊ/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,101 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 12 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for borrow, with forms such as "bborrow", "bororw", and "borow". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 9 confusable-pair relationships, "brow", "burrow", "borrowed", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English borwen, borȝien, Old English borgian (“to borrow, lend, pledge surety for”), from Proto-West Germanic *borgōn, from Proto-Germanic *burgōną (“to pledge, take care of”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰergʰ- (“to take care”). Cognate with Dut… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is borrow, spelled B-O-R-R-O-W, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it.
- 2To receive money from a bank or other lender under the agreement that the lender will be paid back over time.
- 3To adopt (an idea) as one's own.
- 4To adopt a word from another language.
- 5In a subtraction, to deduct (one) from a digit of the minuend and add ten to the following digit, in order that the subtraction of a larger digit in the subtrahend from the digit in the minuend to which ten is added gives a positive result.
- 6To lend.
- 7To temporarily obtain (something) for (someone).
- 8To feign or counterfeit.
- 9To secure the release of (someone) from prison.
- 10To receive (something, usually of trifling value) from somebody, with little possibility of returning it.
- 11To interrupt the current activity of (a person) and lead them away in order to speak with them, get their help, etc.
- 12To adjust one's aim in order to compensate for the slope of the green.
Etymology
From Middle English borwen, borȝien, Old English borgian (“to borrow, lend, pledge surety for”), from Proto-West Germanic *borgōn, from Proto-Germanic *burgōną (“to pledge, take care of”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰergʰ- (“to take care”). Cognate with Dutch borgen (“to borrow, trust”), German borgen (“to borrow, lend”), Danish borge (“to vouch”). Related to Old English beorgan (“to save, preserve”). More at bury.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bborrow,bororw,borow,borroww,borrwo,brorow,obrrow
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for borrow
Misspelling Variants of "borrow"
Frequency rank: #7,101 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: