Other forms: leveraged, leveraging, leverages
Leverage is the advantage that turns a small push into a big result. A buyer who can walk away has leverage over the seller; the only mechanic in a small town has leverage over everyone with a car.
It began with actual levers, and that meaning is alive: a longer spanner gives you more leverage on a stiff bolt. In finance, leverage is borrowed money used to make a bigger bet, and a highly leveraged company owes a great deal against what it owns. The word takes over and with — leverage over a supplier, leverage with the union — and it pairs with gain, lose and have. As a verb it belongs to business talk: leverage your contacts, leverage the data. Plenty of people wince at that verb, and 'use' does the same work in half the letters.
1nounleveragePower to influence people or events, coming from an advantage you hold.
“Losing the contract left the union with no leverage.”
synonyms: clout, bargaining power
2nounmechanicalThe mechanical advantage you get from using a lever.
“Stand further back and you will get more leverage on the bar.”
3nounfinanceIn finance, borrowed money used to increase the possible gain from an investment.
“The fund collapsed because its leverage was far too high.”
4verbuseTo use something you already have in order to gain an advantage.
“They leveraged the brand into a chain of hotels.”
leverage is a form of advantage.
Leverage is lever with -age added, the ending that turns a tool into what the tool gives you. The verb is credited to martial arts, where the move is to use an opponent's own leverage — their weight, their height, their balance — against them. Business English borrowed the verb and never gave it back.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₁lengʷʰ-
Latin
levātor — a lifter
French
levier
Old French
leveor
Middle English
lever
English
lever
English, today
leverage
Built from
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. lever comes from Middle English lever, levore, levour, from Old French leveor, leveur (“a lifter, lever (also Old French - and French levier)”), from Latin levātor (“a lifter”), from levō (“to raise”). a doublet of levator.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA