/ˈbɒrəʊ/
[verb] To take something from someone with the intention of returning it later, or to take and use an idea, word, or style from another source.
The word 'borrow' once meant to give security — the exact opposite of what we mean today.
The word 'borrow' comes from the Old English verb 'borgian', which meant to lend, to be surety for someone, or to pledge something as security. Its roots reach even further back to the Proto-Germanic word 'borgōną', from which we also get the Old English noun 'borg', meaning a pledge or a guarantee. In its earliest life, the word had almost nothing to do with taking — it was entirely about giving assurance, about the act of standing behind a promise with something of real value.
This ancient sense of security and guarantee is still visible in a surprising number of modern English words. 'Borg' eventually became the Old English word 'borh', meaning surety or bail, and from this line came the now-archaic English word 'borwe', meaning a pledge or pawn. The same Proto-Germanic root also traveled through Old High German as 'borgen', meaning to spare or to lend, and into Old Norse as 'borga', meaning to be bail for someone. Every branch of this family tree kept the idea of trust and responsibility at its heart.
The shift in meaning that gave us the modern 'borrow' is a fascinating example of perspective-flipping. In early medieval England, a transaction involving a pledge was described from the point of view of the guarantor — the one offering security. Over centuries, as the language settled and simplified, the word gradually came to describe the experience of the person receiving something on trust, rather than the one guaranteeing its return. By the Middle English period, 'borwen' had firmly settled into meaning what we understand today: to take something with the promise of giving it back.
By around the 13th and 14th centuries, 'borrow' had taken on the shape and meaning it largely holds today, appearing in Middle English texts as 'borwen' and 'borwien'. The word spread naturally and easily through everyday life because lending and borrowing were fundamental activities in a world without banks as we know them — neighbours, merchants, and landlords all relied on systems of personal credit and trust. The word carried that social weight with it.
One of the most charming legacies of this word is how it spread into English idiom and metaphor. To 'borrow trouble' means to worry about something before it happens. In golf, to 'borrow' the green means to account for the slope of the grass. And of course, the English language itself is famous for 'borrowing' words from other languages — a metaphor that is particularly delicious given that such words are almost never returned. The word for taking-with-the-promise-to-give-back has become the standard term for the kind of linguistic taking that is entirely permanent.