Mechanics. a rigid bar that pivots about one point and that is used to move an object at a second point by a force applied at a third.
a tool, as a pry or a crowbar, for raising, moving, or opening something by leverage.
There's a small lever in my toolbox that'll be perfect for prying off these narrow moldings.
a handle or bar that is manipulated to operate, control, or adjust a machine, mechanism, etc..
Pushing down the lever on the left will automatically open the door.
a means or agency of persuading or of achieving an end.
Saying that the chairman of the board likes the plan is just a lever to get us to support it.
Horology. the pallet of an escapement.
a rigid bar pivoted about a fulcrum, used to transfer a force to a load and usually to provide a mechanical advantage
any of a number of mechanical devices employing this principle
a means of exerting pressure in order to accomplish something; strategic aid
A simple machine consisting of a bar that pivots on a fixed support, or fulcrum, and is used to transmit torque. A force applied by pushing down on one end of the lever results in a force pushing up at the other end. If the fulcrum is not positioned in the middle of the lever, then the force applied to one end will not yield the same force on the other, since the torque must be the same on either side of the fulcrum. Levers, like gears, can thus be used to increase the force available from a mechanical power source.
See more at fulcrum See also mechanical advantage
1250–1300; Middle English levere, levour for *lever < Anglo-French; Old French levier, equivalent to lev ( er ) to lift (< Latin levāre to lighten, lift, verbal derivative of levis light) + -ier -ier 2
A lever is a handle, sticking out at an angle, that allows you to operate a machine or close a door. When you pull the lever of a voting booth, you both cast your ballot and open the curtain. All kinds of things — particularly machines — have levers. The word is also used to describe anything that you are able to use to move or influence someone else: think leverage. A headline in The New York Times said the government would use its contracts with private companies as a "wage lever," meaning the government would try to improve wages by giving work and money to companies that paid well and provided generous benefits. Levers get things done.
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Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The remaining 35% of idle capacity gives Meta an additional monetization lever.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 1, 2026
The yen carry trade, a global liquidity lever, poses upheaval for markets, with past intervention causing a 6.1% S&P 500 slump.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
“The company has never posted a full year’s worth of profit, and this is the one lever they can pull to rightsize things,” Drury said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2026
“Currently available SAF supply does not meet global airline demand for even one week,” Delta Air Lines told investors earlier this year, also asserting SAF is “the most promising lever known today” to decarbonize flight.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 2, 2026
After all I’d done to lever myself out of corporate law and into more meaningful community-minded work, I knew I’d be happiest if I could engage actively and work toward achieving measurable results.
From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama
A sale would mark the biggest portfolio shake-up for Unilever since it was created nearly a century ago through the merger of Dutch group Margarine Unie and British soap maker Lever Bros.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 20, 2026
Lever Architecture, a firm with offices in Portland, Ore., and L.A., has helped pioneer the use of mass timber in the U.S.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2025
The Oasis shuttle bus service will depart from Lever Street in the Northern Quarter area of Manchester.
From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2025
According to an analysis from Lever, an investigative newsroom, the private insurance giant Humana — one of the largest providers of Medicare Advantage plans — recorded $2.8 billion in profits in 2022.
From Salon ● Sep. 3, 2024
He smells like a perfect combination of Lever soap and Old Spice.
From "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas
But to see him moving the levers and pushing buttons was fascinating.
From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2026
Rain Newton-Smith, head of British employers' lobby group, the CBI, said "business leaders will be encouraged by efforts to use the levers of devolution to spread prosperity across the country".
From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026
The mission of the group is to “pull all the levers at once,” Raimondo said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
But Harding-Rolls said that may not necessarily be the case because console makers "have different levers that can be pulled to offset hardware costs, which can support cheaper pricing".
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2026
The children watched as the clockwork gears and levers inside the man began to engage.
From "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick
He cites a chart produced recently by Goldman Sachs which illustrated the “explosive growth” in levered exchange-traded funds.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 2, 2026
U.S. notional volume of levered ETFs is about $90 billion, up from almost nothing a decade ago, per Goldman Sachs data.
From Barron's ● Jun. 17, 2026
“Even in a strong economy, AI will disrupt old economy companies, especially highly levered ones,” Pimco said.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 13, 2026
But a well-worked wrap-around move off first-phase ball, levered open a corridor of space for Breach to streak away to score and suck the life out the stadium.
From BBC ● May 17, 2026
I brought my weight down on the rear-bar and pulled and rocked and levered the sledge back away from the edge of the crevasse.
From "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula K. Le Guin
Gerstner expressed concerns that investors are “layering up” right now, noting that “there are 14 exchange-traded funds launching on the day of the SpaceX IPO,” some of which are aimed at levering returns.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 8, 2026
If it is to play a game-changing role in levering in private investment, its £8.3bn funding over five years will have a lot of heavy lifting to do.
From BBC ● Jul. 25, 2024
By employing bioinformatics analyses and levering diverse public datasets, the team validated the robustness of HK-CREs across 50 randomly selected healthy cell types, confirming the location of HK-CREs within the genome.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 5, 2024
The person briefed on Muscat’s confession said Muscat alleges Alfred broke into the car by levering open the rear-quarter window passenger side.
From Reuters ● Nov. 28, 2019
The Abbot worked feverishly, resuscitating, levering and pounding the prone form of Matthias.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
