Is “leverage” a verb?

@DaveBoltman - "verbing weirds language":

so, off the top of my head, here are some examples of weirding:

to park a car
to book a room
to leg it
to rain, snow etc
to light a fire
to plough / plow a field
to be floored by a question
to be hedged in / 'Don't fence me in'
to log an entry
to date something (or somebody - different meanings)
to bar somebody from something
to post / mail a letter
to water the plants
to auction a painting
to table a motion
to chair a meeting
to referree a game
to ship the goods
to house a museum

As far as I can see (with a little checking at Online Etymology Dictionary), in all these cases the noun came first. And what about phrasal and prepositional verbs:

to eye up the girls
to leaf through a book
to elbow someone aside
to ring something up

And then there's your "sums up". "To sum" appears to be a 13th century example of verbing, with the noun just beating the verb into the language. And in your meaning, seems to come from the Latin noun summa.

Stephen Pinker reckons that one fifth of English verbs come from nouns, and says that "in fact, easy conversion of nouns to verbs has been part of English grammar for centuries; it is one of the processes that make English English" (The Language Instict - from about.grammar.com)

And if making nouns from verbs is OK (call, shout, paint), why should making verbs from nouns be so dreadful ? And what about all those verb / noun pairs which can cause stressing problems for foreign learners:

import, export, discount, permit, insult, protest, rebel, project, compound, conduct

No doubt in most cases the verb came first, but in some it seems to have been a pretty close run thing. The word stress itself, incidentally, seems to have appeared in each class about the same time, c.1300.

There's much about corporate speak I don't like, but usually when it's meaningless (going forward) , euphemistic (downsizing) , and especially when it's incomprehensible to those not in the know, and for which perfectlt good alternatives already exist (low hanging fruit, bring your A game, keep me in the loop). I notice that none of those involve verbing, which is usually only a problem when the word is new to us. Some people (me included) still have a problem with incentivise, and perhaps prioritise, while not batting an eyelid at nationalise or harmonise. What a difference a hundred years or so makes.

Impressive responses here.

Incidentally, George Orwell, who is generally viewed as an excellent exponent of English written style, said the same as Jayles the Unwoven. Grammatically you can use a noun as a verb - he quoted "tabling a motion".

Leveraging is a useful verb as it does not mean the same as levering. To lever something (a manhole lid perhaps) you apply a lever to it. To leverage something you apply it to the other end of a lever in order to multiply its effect. So when I used a pick axe at the weekend to lift a manhole lid, I was levering the lid but leveraging my strength. In corporate finance, leveraging is not just borrowing, but using credit to increase the effect of some existing assets. Certainly (like a lot of Americanisms) really useful when used well.

From a grammatical standpoint one can use any noun as a verb if the meaning is clear in context; whether it is good style is another matter.

Thus one can "pen" a letter and so on. The exception to this is where a separate verb form exists already: I can inform you, but not information you.

Leverage as a verb is widely used in financial circles when referring to gearing or the debt/equity ratio. Outside of financial circles the meaning is metaphorical and perhaps just a fashionable buzz word