Loan Meaning
/ləʊn/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAn act or instance of lending, an act or instance of granting something for temporary use.
nounA sum of money or other property that a natural or legal person borrows from another with the condition that it be returned or repaid over time or at a later date (sometimes with interest).
Sentence Examples
You can get a loan from a bank.
The bank accommodated him with a loan of 10,000 yen.
The bank approved a small business loan to help them start.
CEFR Practice Quiz
She took out a bank ____ to buy the new car last week.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He applied for a small business ____ from the bank to help start his new cafe.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English lone, lane, from Old Norse lán, from Proto-Germanic *laihną, from Proto-Indo-European *leykʷ- (“to leave (over)”). Cognate with Icelandic lán, Swedish lån, Danish lån, German Lehen (“fief”), Dutch leen (“fief”), West Frisian lien, North Frisian leen (“fief; loan; office”), Scots lane, lain, len, Old English lǣn. More at lend.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired."
— 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
"And while Thompson has yet to make a first-team appearance for Derby, he got experience playing for Braintree Town on loan in the National League earlier this season.
Eustace also said that there would be no option to bring in an emergency loan cover for as long as O'Donnell remains fit."
— 2026 March 13, “Eustace 'confident' in O'Donnell after Vickers blow”, in BBC, archived from the original on 21 Apr 2026:
"In the course of a correspondence that passed between us at this period, he mentioned, to my utter astonishment, the fact of his having loaned Neilson 81000 to buy my bill on Maryland; and stated that he could not proceed to make the payment until Neilson refunded the money."
— 1820 June 1, William King, Letters to James Monroe: President of the United States, from William King:
"All the rest—six out of eleven, more than half—were loaned to him."
— 1992, Carlo Ginzburg, The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller, page 30:
"Upon maturity of the debt, the investment bank returns the loaned shares.
On the date of issuance, the entity should record the loaned shares at their fair value and recognize them as an issuance cost, with an offset to additional paid-in capital."
— 2015, Joanne M. Flood, Wiley GAAP 2015: Interpretation and Application of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, page 574:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
She took out a bank ____ to buy the new car last week.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
He applied for a small business ____ from the bank to help start his new cafe.