Q: The university where I teach is urging the staff to “lean into” the success of our students. Is this trendy use of “lean” legit? So many suits are employing it that I can hear Bill Withers moaning from the great beyond.
A: The phrasal verb “lean into” is indeed legit and means to embrace or commit to. The usage that’s been around since the mid-20th century, but we know of only two standard dictionaries that have embraced it.
The Oxford Dictionary of English and the New Oxford American Dictionary define “lean into” as “commit fully to or embrace something: lean into kindness and community; they’re keys to serving and connecting you and your neighbours well.”
Both are published by Oxford University Press, which produces the Oxford English Dictionary, an etymological reference that says the usage originated in the US and means “to accept and embrace (an experience); to commit to or fully engage with (a role, task, or undertaking).”
The earliest OED citation is from the Princeton Alumni Weekly (Feb. 10, 1941): “Bill D’Arcy is working for the Coco-Cola Co. in Atlanta, Ga. Kent Cooper is leaning into it at Columbia Business.”
The dictionary’s most recent example is from an article in Corn & Soybean Digest (Sept. 29, 2021) about the need for farmers to speak to their children about the future of their farms: “Sometimes it’s a hard subject to get into for many reasons, but you have to lean into it.”
A similar phrasal verb, “lean in,” appeared in the US in the early 21st century and means “to become fully engaged with something; to commit oneself completely to a role, task, or undertaking, esp. in the face of difficulty or resistance,” according to the OED.
The dictionary’s first citation, which we’ve expanded, is from an article on interactive storytelling: “Kids are being remade to expect to interact, to lean in and make a difference. They do not want to read or watch passively” (“Psst … Wanna Do a Phrontisterion,” by Thom Gillespie, in Future Courses, 2001, edited by Jason Ohler).
[In case you’re curious, a “phrontisterion” or “phrontistery” is a place for thinking or studying. It comes from the post-classical Latin phrontisterium and the ancient Greek ϕροντιστήριον (“thinking shop”), a term that Aristophanes uses in his comedy Νεφέλαι (The Clouds) to ridicule the school of Socrates.]
You can find the term “lean in” in several dictionaries of American and British English. Merriam-Webster online, for example, defines it as “to persevere in spite of risk or difficulty,” and has this example: “Attending college began as a time of ‘leaning in,’ because it took courage to attend a large campus without much parental support and no friends attending with me.”
The OED notes that “lean in” was “popularized by US business executive Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In (2013), in which she encourages women to challenge traditional gender roles and aspire to leadership in the workplace.”
Finally, you mentioned the American singer-songwriter Bill Withers, who used a much older phrasal verb in his 1972 song “Lean on Me.”
The OED says the use of “lean” with “on,” “upon,” or by itself to mean rely on dates from the Middle English of the 12th century.
The OED’s earliest example, with leonie up on, is from the anonymous Ancrene Riwle, or rules for anchoresses, dating from before 1200. Here’s an expanded version:
“ha understonden þet ha ahen to beon of se hali lif þet al hali chirche, þet is cristene folk, leonie & wreoðie up on ham.”
(“they [the anchoresses] understand that they must live so holy a life that all the holy church, that is, the Christian people, may lean and depend upon them.”)
We’ll end with the chorus from the Bill Withers song “Lean on Me”:
Lean on me
When you’re not strong
And I’ll be your friend,
I’ll help you carry on
For it won’t be long
Till I’m gonna need
Somebody to lean on.
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