Lend vs Borrow

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Lend vs Borrow Difference
Lend and borrow are two of those words that are used interchangeably in the English language. Unlike the other words, the mistake of using lend and borrow interchangeably stem from the fact that they imply something in an almost similar fashion and not because they sound or look the same or because they are pronounced almost the same.

The difference between these two words actually come from the “direction” of the action. Lend and borrow are both verbs. To lend actually means to loan something with the understanding that the object being loaned will be returned after use. The direction here comes from the one giving permission to another person to use an object.

An example for a sentence with the correct usage of the word lend is this “She lent me her bike yesterday, and she expects me to return it tomorrow.” Lent, in the sentence, is the past tense of lend. In the sentence, she, or the object, gave permission to another person to use her bike, and she wants the bike to be returned “tomorrow”.

The direction of borrow is from the receiving end. The term borrow is to use an object of another person (meaning the one using it is not the real owner of the object) for a limited time. After utilization, the object will then be returned to the original owner of the object.

Here, we can see that the direction is from the one asking another person if he or she can use the other person’s object. The sentence we used earlier can be tweaked to show the correct usage of the term borrow: “I borrowed her bike yesterday, and she expects me to return it tomorrow.”

In this sentence, it is implied that the subject (I) asked someone else’s permission to use the bike, and there is a promise that the object, the bike in this example, will be returned “tomorrow”.