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Master confusing words with ease

Lend vs. Loan

Lend

/lend/

To provide someone with something temporarily with the expectation of it being returned

Examples:

Can you lend me a pen?They will lend him their car for the weekend.

Synonyms:

Antonyms:

Loan

/ləun/

An amount of money that is borrowed from a bank or financial institution and expected to be paid back with interest.

Examples:

He got a loan to buy a car.The bank approved her loan application yesterday.

Synonyms:

Antonyms:

This word has no antonyms

Ways to tell them apart:

Lend is a verb, describing the action of giving something to someone temporarily.
Loan can be used as a noun to describe the thing that is lent, especially money or a book.
Think of lend as an action — what you do — while loan as a thing — what is given.
You lend a book to a friend; a bank gives you a loan.
While lend can also mean to confer or add something like lending a helping hand, loan doesn’t have this flexibility.

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