Word.ws English Dictionary

borrowship

borrowship noun: suretyship or the act of borrowing.

Noun

borrowship

  1. (archaic, rare) Suretyship or the act of borrowing.
    • From some relative Cynthia managed to obtain on permanent borrowship a pair of binoculars, to lie in the stillness of night, binoculars pressed into the eyes, trying to count the stars, always talking in a whisper, the night sky a wondrous sight of beauty.2013, Michael Cooke, Always Never, page 12
    • I couldn't bring myself to tell her I only had partial borrowship—that would defeat the purpose.2021, Jeannine Henvey, Two Truths and a Guy
    Synonyms:
    borrowage

Synonyms of borrowship

Origin of borrowship

A calque of Middle English borweschipe, equivalent to borrow + -ship. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Buurchskup (“suretiship”), Dutch borgschap (“suretiship”), German Low German Börgskupp, Börgschop (“suretiship”), German Bürgschaft (“suretiship”)

Questions about borrowship

What does borrowship mean?
Borrowship means suretyship or the act of borrowing.
What part of speech is borrowship?
Borrowship is a noun.

Words near borrowship in the dictionary

  1. borrowings
  2. borrows
  3. borrows a leaf out of someone's book
  4. borrows from Peter to pay Paul
  5. borrows trouble
  6. borrowship
  7. Borruso
  8. Borrusos
  9. borry
  10. borrying
  11. bors

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: borrowship (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “borrowship.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/borrowship. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.