lend

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   bestow a quality on

   My presence lends a certain cachet to the company.

2. 2
   verb

   To allow to be used by someone temporarily, on condition that it or its equivalent will be returned.

   I will only lend you my car if you fill up the tank.

3. 3
   verb

   To be suitable or applicable, to fit.

   Poems do not lend themselves to translation easily.

4. 4
   verb

   To afford; to grant or furnish in general.

   Can you lend me some assistance?

5. 5
   noun

   Loan (permission to borrow (something)).

   “But,” says Arthur, “I wouldn't be proud of your clothes, / For you've only the lend of them, as I suppose.”

6. 6
   verb

   give temporarily

7. 7
   verb

   have certain characteristics of qualities for something

8. 8
   verb

   To make a loan.

Etymology

From Middle English lende (usually in plural as lendes, leendes, lyndes), from Old English lendenu, lendino (“loins”), plural of Old English lenden (“loin”), from Proto-West Germanic *landī, from Proto-Germanic *landį̄ (“loin”), from Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- (“loin, kidney”). Cognate with Scots lend, leynd (“the loins, flank, buttocks”), Dutch lendenen (“loins, reins”), German Lenden (“loins”), Swedish länder (“loins”), Danish lænd (“loin”), Icelandic lendar (“loins”), Latin lumbus (“loin”) (whence loin), Polish lędźwie (“loins”), Russian ля́двея (ljádveja, “thigh, haunch”).