leverage

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The action of a lever.
• noun The mechanical advantage of a lever.
• noun Positional advantage; power to act effectively.
• noun The use of credit or borrowed funds, often for a speculative investment, as in buying securities on margin.
• transitive verb To provide (a company) with leverage.
• transitive verb To supplement (money, for example) with leverage.
• transitive verb To improve or enhance.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The action of a lever; the arrangement by which lever-power is gained.
• noun Lever-power; the mechanical advantage or power gained by using a lever.
• noun Figuratively, advantage for accomplishing a purpose; increased power of action.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The action of a lever; mechanical advantage gained by the lever.
• noun (Mech.) the perpendicular distance between the lines of action of two forces which act in parallel and opposite directions.
• noun the perpendicular distance from the line in which a force acts upon a body to a point about which the body may be supposed to turn.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun A force compounded by means of a lever rotating around a pivot; see torque.
• noun By extension, any influence which is compounded or used to gain an advantage.
• noun finance The use of borrowed funds with a contractually determined return to increase the ability of a business to invest and earn an expected higher return, but usually at high risk.
• noun business The ability to earn very high returns when operating at high capacity utilization of a facility.
• verb transitive, business To use; to exploit; to take full advantage (of something).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• verb supplement with leverage
• noun the mechanical advantage gained by being in a position to use a lever
• verb provide with leverage
• noun investing with borrowed money as a way to amplify potential gains (at the risk of greater losses)
• noun strategic advantage; power to act effectively