leverage🔊

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

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

(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.

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

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

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

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