Lending is the letting out of books to be taken home. A lending library, lending rights, the lending desk.
The lending library was a genuine social revolution: before it, reading meant owning, and owning meant money. British authors are paid a small sum each time a book is borrowed, under a scheme called public lending right. In finance, lending means loans.
1nounlendingThe letting out of books to be taken home.
“Most of the library's books are for lending, but the old maps must stay in the reading room.”
lending is a service.
Proto-Germanic
*laihnijaną — to loan
Proto-West Germanic
*laihnijan
Old English
lǣnan — to lend; give, grant, lease
Middle English
lenen
English
lend
English, today
lending
lend comes from earlier len (with excrescent -d, as in sound), from Middle English lenen, lænen, from Old English lǣnan (“to lend; give, grant, lease”), from Proto-West Germanic laihnijan, from Proto-Germanic laihnijaną (“to loan”), from Proto-Germanic laihną (“loan”), from Proto-Indo-European leykʷ- (“to leave, leave over”). Cognate with Scots len, lend (“to lend”), West Frisian liene (“to lend, borrow, loan”), Dutch lenen (“to lend, borrow, loan”), Danish låne (“to lend, loan”), Swedish låna (“to lend, loan”), Icelandic lána (“to lend, loan”), Icelandic léna (“to grant”), Latin linquō (“quit, leave, forlet”), Ancient Greek λείπω (“leave, release”). See also loan.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA