leverage

A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot.

Noun

  1. A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot.
    • A crowbar uses leverage to pry nails out of wood.
    • In order to proportion the braking force to the weight carried by a wheel - a matter of special importance in the braking of wagons - variable leverage systems are now being introduced in which the end of one axle...

    Synonyms: mechanical advantage

    Coordinate Terms: torque

  2. Any influence which is compounded or used to gain an advantage.
    • Try using competitors’ prices for leverage in the negotiation.
    • The former Forest man, who passed a late fitness test, appeared to use Guy Moussi for leverage before nodding in David Fox's free-kick at the far post - his 22nd goal of the season. - 2011 April 15, Saj Chowdhury,...
  3. The use of borrowed funds with a contractually determined return to increase the ability to invest and earn an expected higher return, but usually at high risk.
    • Leverage is great until something goes wrong with your investments and you still have to pay your debts.
    • Online margin trading is usually based on leverage, where the brokerage effectively lets you borrow more money than you have deposited as collateral. - 2011, Brian Dolan, Currency Trading For Dummies, John Wiley & Sons,...
    • Both exchanges offer crypto derivatives, which are bets on future fluctuations in cryptocurrency prices. They also offer extreme leverage — up to 125 times on Binance. That means a $1,000 down payment can be turned into...
  4. The debt-to-equity ratio.
    • In such cases where there is a multiple capital structure the factor known as leverage comes into play. - 1933 June 4, “Trusts Heartened by Security Rally”, in New York Times:

    Synonyms: gearing

  5. The ability to earn very high returns when operating at high-capacity utilization of a facility.
    • Their variable-cost-reducing investments have dramatically increased their leverage.

    Synonyms: operating leverage

  6. The distance of between an independent observation and other observations.

Origin

From lever + -age. The verb likely comes from martial arts/judo usage, where one would "use an opponent's leverage (i.e. their weight, height, centre of balance, etc.)" against them in order to defeat them.

Forms

leverages

Derived

overleverage

Verb

  1. To use; to exploit; to manipulate in order to take full advantage (of something).
    • They plan to leverage the publicity into a good distribution agreement.
    • They plan to leverage off the publicity to get a good distribution agreement.
    • EAP research has developed advanced methods for producing corpus-informed vocabulary resources, but these have yet to be fully leveraged to promote disciplinary literacy within the secondary school context. - 2018,...

Forms

leverages leveraging leveraged

Synonyms

exploit use

Related

force multiplier

Derived

deleverage leverageable leveraged buyout leverager overleverage overleveraged underleveraged unleveraged