leverage

Plural: leverages

Noun

• the mechanical advantage gained by being in a position to use a lever
• strategic advantage; power to act effectively
  • "relatively small groups can sometimes exert immense political leverage"
• investing with borrowed money as a way to amplify potential gains (at the risk of greater losses)
• A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot.
• Any influence which is compounded or used to gain an advantage.
• 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.
• The debt-to-equity ratio.
• The ability to earn very high returns when operating at high-capacity utilization of a facility.
• The distance of between an independent observation and other observations.

Verb

Verb Forms: leveraged, leveraging, leverages

• To use something to maximum advantage; to provide economic advantage.
• supplement with leverage
  • "leverage the money that is already available"
• provide with leverage
  • "We need to leverage this company"
• To use; to exploit; to manipulate in order to take full advantage (of something).

Examples

• A crowbar uses leverage to pry nails out of wood.
• Leverage is great until something goes wrong with your investments and you still have to pay your debts.
• She tried to leverage her remaining ’Z’ to create a long word, but ran out of vowels.
• Their variable-cost-reducing investments have dramatically increased their leverage.
• They plan to leverage off the publicity to get a good distribution agreement.
• They plan to leverage the publicity into a good distribution agreement.
• Try using competitors’ prices for leverage in the negotiation.

Synonyms

leveraging, purchase, exploit, gearing, mechanical advantage, operating leverage, use

Related Words

force multiplier

Anagrams of leverage