Definition of "leverage" in Englisch

noun

1. A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot.

   • A crowbar uses leverage to pry nails out of wood.

2. (by extension) Any influence which is compounded or used to gain an advantage.

   • Try using competitors’ prices for leverage in the negotiation.

3. (finance) The use of borrowed funds with a contractually determined return to increase the ability to invest and earn an expected higher return, but usually at high risk.

   • Leverage is great until something goes wrong with your investments and you still have to pay your debts.

4. (finance) The debt-to-equity ratio.

5. (business) The ability to earn very high returns when operating at high-capacity utilization of a facility.

   • Their variable-cost-reducing investments have dramatically increased their leverage.

6. (statistics, regression analytics) The distance of between an independent observation and other observations.

verb

1. (transitive, chiefly US, slang, business) To use; to exploit; to manipulate in order to take full advantage (of something).

   • They plan to leverage the publicity into a good distribution agreement.
   • They plan to leverage off the publicity to get a good distribution agreement.