Definition of "leverage" []

• The action of a lever. (noun)
• The mechanical advantage of a lever. (noun)
• Positional advantage; power to act effectively: "started his . . . career with far more social leverage than his father had enjoyed” ( Doris Kearns Goodwin). (noun)
• The use of credit or borrowed funds to improve one's speculative capacity and increase the rate of return from an investment, as in buying securities on margin. (noun)
• To provide (a company) with leverage. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "On the label leverage in the quarter, which was clearly quite significant, I wonder if you'd give us just a bit more color around how you achieved that?"
• "G20 participants did not say how the 440 billion-euro European Financial Stability Facility might be altered although French Finance Minister Francois Baroin used the word leverage' in comments to reporters."
• "No details were given of how the EFSF might be altered, although French Finance Minister Francois Baroin used the word "leverage" in comments to reporters."