Leverage in a Sentence: 40+ Examples by Meaning

By Marcel Hambálek · Senior Trader, For Traders

Leverage is both a noun meaning power or advantage you can use to influence an outcome ("The union had real leverage during the talks") and a transitive verb meaning to use something to maximum advantage ("They leveraged their data to win the contract"). Cambridge, Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary all list both; in finance it also names the ratio between borrowed capital and your own — at 1:100, $1,000 of margin controls $100,000.

Key takeaways

• As a noun, leverage means influence or bargaining power; as a verb it means to use a resource to maximum advantage — both are standard, not slang.
• The four distinct senses are influence/bargaining power, the verb "use to advantage", the mechanical lever sense, and the financial ratio sense.
• Leverage is uncountable as a noun — write "more leverage", never "more leverages"; "leverages" is only the third-person singular verb form.
• "Leverage over someone" is neutral and structural; "leverage on someone" reads coercive and is better paraphrased in professional writing.
• Americans say /ˈlɛvərɪdʒ/ (LEV-er-ij), Britons usually say /ˈliːvərɪdʒ/ (LEE-ver-ij) — both are correct in their own variety.
• In trading, leverage amplifies drawdown exactly as much as it amplifies gains, which is why prop evaluations cap risk per trade rather than leverage alone.

Watch: related video

Leverage meaning: the one-line answers

Leverage changes shape depending on what job it's doing in the sentence. Lock down these four forms and you'll never fumble it in a trading plan, a cover letter, or a pitch deck again.

What does leverage mean?

Leverage, the noun, means power or advantage that lets you influence a situation or outcome. "The union had real leverage during the talks" — no borrowed money involved, just the ability to tilt things your way. This is the meaning of leverage most people learn first, outside any finance context.

What does leveraging mean?

Leveraging is the present-participle/gerund form of the verb — the act of using a resource right now to maximum advantage. "They're leveraging their customer data to win the contract" describes an ongoing action, not a finished one. Swap in "leveraging" whenever you need the -ing form after "is," "are," or "by": "by leveraging its supplier relationships, the firm cut costs 12%."

What does leveraged mean?

Leveraged works three ways: past tense ("she leveraged her network to land the job"), past participle ("the deal has been leveraged twice"), and an adjective meaning funded by borrowed money ("a leveraged buyout"). That last sense is the one traders live in daily — a leveraged position is one controlled with borrowed capital, not just cash on hand.

What does it mean to leverage something?

To leverage something means to use it as a tool to get more out of a situation than you could on raw effort alone. You can leverage a skill, a relationship, a reputation, or capital. The mechanism is always the same: a smaller input controls or produces a bigger output.

The four senses of leverage at a glance

Cambridge English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, and the Oxford English Dictionary all list leverage as both noun and verb — the verb use has been standard in corporate and financial English since at least the 1930s, borrowed from the mechanical idea of a lever multiplying force. Here's the full breakdown, leverage meaning in English with example for each sense:

Leverage: part of speech and all four word forms

Leverage part of speech depends on how it's used in the sentence — it's primarily an uncountable noun ("the leverage you have") and a transitive verb ("to leverage something"), and when you add -ed it flips into an attributive adjective ("a leveraged position"). Get the part of speech right and the rest of the grammar — singular/plural, verb forms, word order — falls into place on its own.

Noun (uncountable) — and why "leverages" as a plural is wrong

As a noun, leverage behaves like "information" or "equipment" — you don't count individual units of it, so there's no plural form. You have more leverage or less leverage, never "leverages" as a count noun.

• ✓ "We have more leverage now that two brokers are bidding for the account."
• ✗ "We have more leverages now."

If you see "leverages" and it's not attached to a subject pronoun like "he" or "the fund," it's almost certainly the verb form, not a broken attempt at a plural noun. That distinction matters for leverages meaning — in 95% of real usage, "leverages" is third-person singular present tense, not a noun at all.

Transitive verb — leverage always takes an object

As a verb, leverage meaning "to use something to maximum advantage" always needs a direct object. You leverage something — your data, your network, your margin — you don't just "leverage" and stop there, the way you might "run" or "wait."

• ✓ "The desk leveraged its order flow data to time entries better."
• ✗ "The desk leveraged to time entries better." (missing object — grammatically incomplete)

This is the same pattern as "use" or "exploit" — both transitive, both demanding a noun right after them. If your sentence reads like it ended too early, check for the missing object first.

Attributive adjective — "leveraged buyout", "leveraged ETF"

Add -ed and leverage becomes an adjective that sits in front of a noun, describing something built on borrowed capital. A leveraged buyout (LBO) is an acquisition financed mostly with debt; a leveraged ETF uses derivatives to amplify a daily index return 2x or 3x. In both cases "leveraged" modifies the noun — it isn't standing in for the verb.

Inflection table: leverage, leverages, leveraged, leveraging

Leverage in a sentence: 46 examples sorted by meaning

Here's the full bank. Every entry below is numbered so you can count them yourself — 46 total, grouped by the sense of the word, with a note on register at the top of each group so you know whether a sentence belongs in a boardroom memo or a group chat.

Sense 1 — Influence and bargaining power (examples 1–10)

Register: boardroom and journalism. This is the oldest surviving noun sense and the one most business writers reach for by instinct.

1. The union had real leverage during the contract talks.
2. Her reputation gave her leverage in the negotiation.
3. The smaller supplier had no leverage against the retail chain.
4. With three competing offers on the table, she finally had leverage.
5. The report gave reporters fresh leverage over the senator.
6. We lost leverage the moment the deadline leaked. (business-writer ready)
7. Patience is leverage — the side that can wait longer usually wins. (business-writer ready)
8. His inside knowledge of the board gave him quiet leverage. (jargon-light, business-writer ready)
9. Market share is leverage; without it, pricing power disappears.
10. The whistleblower's testimony became the prosecution's main leverage.

Sense 2 — The verb "to leverage" (examples 11–20)

Register: corporate and strategic writing — the most common way people search "leverage example sentence" in a work context.

1. They leverage their supplier relationships to cut costs.
2. You should leverage your network before applying cold.
3. The agency leverages social proof to win new clients.
4. We leverage customer data to personalise every email. (jargon-heavy — flag before using in client-facing copy)
5. Startups often leverage free trials to build word of mouth. (business-writer ready)
6. She leverages her morning routine to stay sharp for the open.
7. The team leveraged a single viral post into a six-figure launch. (business-writer ready)
8. Good managers leverage feedback instead of ignoring it. (business-writer ready)
9. He leverages every small edge, which is why he's consistent.
10. We leverage our size to negotiate better shipping rates.

Sense 3 — "Leveraging" as gerund and participle (examples 21–27)

Register: mixed — formal reports use the gerund as a subject; narrative writing uses the participle to open a sentence. Both are correct; they just do different grammatical jobs.

1. Gerund (acts as a noun): Leveraging automation cut our processing costs by a third.
2. Participle (describes the subject): Leveraging his contacts, she closed the deal in two calls.
3. Leveraging in a sentence like this one shows the word doing double duty — subject and modifier.
4. Leveraging your journal data is the fastest way to spot a recurring mistake.
5. Leveraging weak support zones, the fund built its position over three sessions.
6. Leveraging community feedback kept the product roadmap honest. (business-writer ready)
7. Leveraging a small account properly — not aggressively — is how traders survive long enough to learn.

Sense 4 — "Leveraged" in past tense and as adjective (examples 28–35)

Register: finance and M&A reporting — this is where "leveraged" turns into a technical adjective, not just a verb form.

1. They leveraged their savings to start the business.
2. The firm leveraged its brand into three new markets.
3. It was a leveraged buyout (LBO) in all but name. (jargon-heavy — expected in finance writing)
4. The hedge fund ran a heavily leveraged book going into earnings. (jargon-heavy)
5. He leveraged a 1:100 account to scale the position faster than his capital allowed.
6. Our leveraged ETF exposure doubled on the index move.
7. The startup leveraged a government grant to extend its runway. (business-writer ready)
8. A leveraged position amplifies both the win and the drawdown — that's the whole deal.

Sense 5 — Mechanical and physical leverage (examples 36–40)

Register: plain, literal, academic-adjacent — physics and engineering, where leverage keeps its oldest meaning.

1. The crowbar gave him enough leverage to shift the stone.
2. A longer handle creates more leverage on the wrench.
3. Archimedes argued that leverage could move the world, given a long enough lever.
4. The mechanic used a pry bar for extra leverage under the chassis.
5. Her stance gave her better leverage during the lift.

Sense 6 — Financial and trading leverage (examples 41–46)

Register: trading desk and prop firm vocabulary — the sense this site exists to explain properly.

1. At 1:100 leverage, $1,000 of margin controls a $100,000 position.
2. Excess leverage is the fastest way to blow a funded account.
3. The broker capped leverage on gold at 1:50 after the volatility spike.
4. Retail traders often misunderstand how leverage magnifies both sides of P&L.
5. Reducing leverage on volatile pairs is a habit worth building early.
6. In forex, standard leverage ratios can turn a 1% move into a 100% account swing.

"Leverage over someone" vs "leverage on someone"

"Leverage over someone" describes a structural position of advantage, while "leverage on someone" implies applying direct pressure — and usually reads as coercive. This is one of the most-searched confusions around the word, and most grammar sites skip it entirely. Here's the actual distinction, with the receipts.

Leverage over someone: neutral and structural

"Leverage over someone" is the standard collocation in negotiation, business, and politics writing. It describes bargaining power that exists because of circumstance — market position, information, timing — not because anyone is squeezing anyone. "The supplier had leverage over the retailer once the contract renewal date approached" is a neutral, almost clinical observation. No menace implied. This is the version you'll find in business school case studies and negotiation textbooks, and it's the version safe for professional reports, memos, and analysis.

Leverage on someone: why it reads coercive

Swap "over" for "on" and the sentence shifts register fast. "They had leverage on him" reads closer to "they had something on him" — blackmail territory, or at minimum an implied threat. The preposition "on" suggests pressure applied directly to a person's body or behavior, the way you'd lean weight onto something. That's the "leverage on someone meaning" most searchers are actually trying to pin down: it's not wrong grammatically, but it almost never appears in neutral business writing without a whiff of extortion. If you're drafting a compliance memo or performance review, "on" is the wrong preposition.

Six paired sentences showing the connotation gap

1. Over: "The landlord had leverage over the tenant because rents were rising." / On: "The landlord had leverage on the tenant and used it to force an early move-out."
2. Over: "The union held leverage over management during contract season." / On: "The foreman held leverage on the new hire and exploited it."
3. Over: "Her patent gave her leverage over competitors in licensing talks." / On: "She had leverage on her business partner from an old email thread."
4. Over: "The buyer's cash offer gave them leverage over other bidders." / On: "He kept leverage on his ex-partner by withholding the documents."
5. Over: "Scarcity of supply gave OPEC leverage over oil-importing nations." / On: "The informant had leverage on the suspect and threatened exposure."
6. Over: "Early movers in a market often have leverage over latecomers." / On: "The blackmailer's leverage on the executive came from the stolen files."

Notice the pattern: "over" scenarios involve a market, a clock, or a structural edge. "On" scenarios involve one person holding something specific against another, usually with an implied threat of using it.

Neutral paraphrases for professional writing

If you need to describe negotiation strength in a report and want zero coercive undertone, skip "leverage" against a person entirely:

• "Has a stronger negotiating position"
• "Holds the deciding vote"
• "Can set the terms"
• "Has greater bargaining power"
• "Is negotiating from strength"

Save "leverage against" for competitors or circumstances, not people — "leveraged the court ruling against the opposing counsel" is fine; "had leverage against his manager" starts drifting back toward "on" territory. When in doubt, structural beats personal.

Which preposition follows leverage? Over, on, for, against, with

Five prepositions pair correctly with leverage, and each one changes what you're saying: over signals advantage relative to a party, on signals pressure, for signals the goal, against signals the counterweight, with signals the counterparty you hold it with. Mix these up and a sentence that should sound sharp reads like a translation.

The five correct patterns, one example each

The three verb frames: leverage X to do Y / for Y / against Y

Once leverage works as a verb, three productive frames cover almost every trading and business sentence you'll write:

• leverage X to do Y — "He leveraged his trading log to identify which setups actually paid off."
• leverage X for Y — "The fund leveraged its gold position for a bigger margin cushion."
• leveraging X against Y — "She was leveraging her futures hedge against the dollar's slide."

Each frame does a different job. "To do Y" states an action outcome. "For Y" states a benefit. "Against Y" states a counterweight — the thing you're offsetting. Across For Traders evaluations, candidates who describe their edge in these terms — "I leverage my backtested R:R for consistent sizing" rather than vague talk of "using leverage well" — tend to write clearer trading journals, and clearer journals correlate with better rule-following during the Challenge.

The "never leverage to someone" rule

"Leverage to someone" is not idiomatic English in any register — formal, casual, or financial. Native speakers don't say "I have leverage to my boss"; they say leverage over, on, or with. If you've typed "leverage to" followed by a person, swap it for one of the five collocations above.

One more distinction worth locking in: leveraged by flips the sentence to name the agent doing the using, not the party being pressured. "The dataset was leveraged by the research team" means the team used the dataset — it's a passive construction, not a pressure relationship. Confusing "leveraged by" with "leverage over" is one of the most common collocations errors in business English, and it's an easy one to fix once you see the pattern laid out.

Leverage pronunciation and where the word comes from

Short answer: Americans say it LEV-er-ij (/ˈlɛvərɪdʒ/), the British say LEE-ver-ij (/ˈliːvərɪdʒ/), and both put the stress on the first syllable — three syllables, not two. Get the stress right and the vowel sound barely matters for being understood.

American /ˈlɛvərɪdʒ/ vs British /ˈliːvərɪdʒ/

The split comes down to one vowel. American English treats the first syllable like the word "lever" said quickly — LEV, rhyming with "never." British English stretches it to LEEV, rhyming with "leave." So you get:

• US: /ˈlɛvərɪdʒ/ — LEV-er-ij
• UK: /ˈliːvərɪdʒ/ — LEE-ver-ij

Here's the wrinkle worth knowing if you trade or work with UK counterparties: London finance desks have drifted toward the American pronunciation over the past couple of decades, largely because so much trading terminology, research, and media is US-sourced. You'll hear senior UK traders say LEV-er-ij in the same meeting where they say "leaver" for everything else. Neither version is wrong — Merriam-Webster lists the American form, Oxford lists the British one, and both are standard in their respective markets.

Syllable stress and common mispronunciations

The stress always lands on the first syllable: LE-ver-age, never le-VER-age. That's the error non-native speakers make most often, probably because the eye wants to treat "verage" as its own unit. Say it out loud in a sentence — "That's real leverage" — and you'll feel the stress fall naturally on the front if you don't overthink it. The other common slip is dropping a syllable entirely and saying "LEV-rij," collapsing it to two beats. It's a minor slip, but in a client call or a trading-desk voice note it reads as rushed rather than deliberate.

Archimedes, the fulcrum, and why every sense is the same idea

The word traces back to the simple machine: a lever, from French lever, "to raise." The ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes is credited with the line that defines the whole concept — give him a lever long enough and a fulcrum to rest it on, and he could move the Earth. That's not poetry, it's physics: a small force applied far from the fulcrum produces a disproportionately large force at the business end.

Every modern sense of "leverage" is that same image wearing a different costume. A crowbar levers a small push into a large lift. A negotiator levers a small piece of information into a large concession. A trader levers a small margin deposit into control of a much larger position. The input changes — physical force, data, capital — but the mechanism is identical: a fixed point, a long arm, and an amplified result at the other end.

Leverage in finance and business: what "leveraged" really signals

In money terms, leverage is a ratio: it tells you how much market exposure a fixed amount of your own capital controls. At 1:100, $1,000 of margin controls $100,000 of notional value. The word hasn't changed meaning from the crowbar — you're still turning a small input into a larger output — but now the "arm" is borrowed capital instead of borrowed information or physical length.

Financial leverage ratio: 1:100, 50:1 and what the numbers mean

A financial leverage ratio expresses the multiple between your deposit and the position size it opens. Forex brokers commonly advertise 1:100 or even 1:500; U.S. retail accounts are capped closer to 50:1 on major pairs under CFTC rules. The higher the ratio, the smaller the price move needed to wipe out your margin.

• "At 50:1 leverage, a 2% adverse move erases your entire deposit."
• "She ran her forex account at 1:100 leverage, which felt aggressive compared to her 1:10 stock positions."

Margin vs leverage — the distinction most pages blur

Margin is the cash you put up; leverage is the multiple that cash controls. They're two readings of the same trade, not interchangeable words — mixing them up is the single most common error in beginner explainers.

"Highly leveraged": debt-to-equity and corporate leverage

Outside trading accounts, "highly leveraged" describes a company whose debt-to-equity ratio is unusually high — it has funded growth with borrowed money rather than shareholder capital. This is corporate leverage, and it cuts both ways: it magnifies returns on the way up and losses on the way down.

• "The airline was highly leveraged going into the downturn, with debt-to-equity north of 3:1."
• "Analysts flagged the retailer's corporate leverage as a risk ahead of earnings."

Leveraged buyout, leveraged ETF and operating leverage

Three more terms worth owning. A leveraged buyout (LBO) is an acquisition funded mostly by borrowed money, often using the target company's own assets as collateral. A leveraged ETF resets its multiple exposure daily, so it can decay over time even if the underlying index ends flat. Operating leverage describes how fixed costs amplify swings in revenue into bigger swings in profit.

• "The private equity firm financed the leveraged buyout using the target's factories as collateral."
• "He held a 3x leveraged ETF through a choppy month and watched decay eat his gains."
• "High operating leverage meant a 10% sales drop became a 30% profit drop."

Leverage in trading: what 1:100 actually does to your account

At 1:100 leverage, roughly $1,000 of margin controls $100,000 of notional exposure — one standard lot of EURUSD. That ratio is the entire story of why small price moves turn into big account swings, and why "leverage in trading" gets treated so differently from the dictionary definition of the word.

How a 50-pip move becomes a 5% account swing

Run the numbers. One standard lot of EURUSD is $10 per pip. A 50-pip move — a normal half-day range, nothing exotic — is $500. On a $10,000 account, that's 5%, in either direction, from a single leg. You didn't do anything wrong or right; you just held a position sized at 1:100 through a typical move. This is the gap people miss when they read "leverage in a sentence" examples from a finance textbook and assume the ratio itself is the risk. It isn't — position size and drawdown are what actually move your equity curve. The leverage ratio just tells you how much notional your margin can rent; your lot size decides how much of that rental you actually take home in daily swings.

Leverage amplifies drawdown exactly as much as reward

Here's the part that doesn't make it into the hype: the same $500 swing that feels great on a winning Tuesday is identical in size on a losing one. Leverage has no opinion about direction — it's a multiplier, full stop. A trader who sizes up to 1:100 because "it worked last week" is running the exact same arithmetic on the week it doesn't. That's why serious risk management starts with asking what a 50-pip adverse move does to your account before you ask what a 50-pip favorable move does. If you haven't priced out both sides of that symmetry, you're not managing risk, you're hoping.

Why prop evaluations cap risk per trade, not leverage alone

This is also why prop firms rarely bother restricting the leverage number on your account page and instead cap risk per trade, daily loss limit, and max drawdown. A trader can blow a $50,000 evaluation at 1:30 leverage just as fast as one at 1:100, simply by running oversized lots relative to account size — leverage sets the ceiling, sizing decides how close to it you actually climb. Capping the ratio alone wouldn't stop a trader determined to overexpose; capping risk per trade does, because it forces the lot-size math regardless of what leverage is available. It's the same logic you'll find in any serious guide to margin vs leverage — the ratio is a tool, the sizing decision is the risk.

The For Traders Trading Challenge is built around that same principle: you get real leverage to work with, but hard daily loss limit and max drawdown rules attached, so the evaluation is honestly testing whether you can size leveraged positions sensibly on simulated capital — not whether you can survive by accident. If 1:100 math like the EURUSD example above is new to you, work through a lot-size guide before you touch a funded attempt; sizing is the skill, not the leverage toggle.

When to write "use" instead of "leverage"

Default to "use" unless the sentence genuinely needs a multiplier sense — borrowed capital, fixed costs spread thinner, or small input producing outsized output. Style guides from Harvard Business Review to plain-English campaigns in government writing have flagged "leverage" as a verb for decades, and the complaint is fair: in most sentences it's a three-syllable stand-in for a one-syllable word that says the same thing. The verb isn't wrong — it's standard English, listed by Merriam-Webster and the OED — it's just overused as business jargon, and overuse is what gets it mocked in style memos.

The register test: boardroom, journalism, academic

Register is the real issue, not grammar. Three contexts, three different tolerances:

• Boardroom / corporate memo: "leverage" passes without comment — it's house style in strategy decks, consulting reports, and quarterly calls. Nobody blinks at "leverage our market position."
• Journalism: most style desks (Associated Press included) prefer "use," "draw on," or "build on" for readability. A news sentence reads cleaner as "the campaign used voter data" than "leveraged voter data."
• Academic writing: reviewers often flag "leverage" as imprecise unless the paper is specifically about financial leverage, debt ratios, or statistical weighting — contexts where the multiplier sense is the actual subject matter.

If you're unsure which register you're in, ask whether a reader would lose any meaning if you swapped the word. If not, swap it.

Three before-and-after rewrites

1. Before: "We need to leverage our existing customer base to leverage more revenue."After: "We need to use our existing customer base to generate more revenue." (Two "leverages" in one sentence is the jargon tell — cut at least one.)
2. Before: "The firm leveraged its brand reputation to enter new markets."After: "The firm drew on its brand reputation to enter new markets." ("Drew on" keeps the sense of pulling from a reserve without the finance connotation.)
3. Before: "Analysts leveraged historical data to build the forecast."After: "Analysts built on historical data to construct the forecast." (Here "exploit" would also work if you want a sharper, more deliberate tone.)

When leverage is the only right word

Keep "leverage" when the sentence is actually about a multiplier and nothing else captures that. "The trader leveraged a $1,000 deposit into $100,000 of exposure" can't become "used a $1,000 deposit into $100,000 of exposure" — the sentence breaks, because "used" drops the ratio entirely. Same with "fixed costs give the business operating leverage" — "operating use" means nothing. In trading, financial writing, and any context where you're describing borrowed capital, margin, or fixed-cost magnification, "leverage" is doing structural work that "use," "draw on," and "exploit" simply can't replace. That's the line: if removing "leverage" removes the multiplier from the meaning, it stays. If it doesn't, cut it.

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