Dictionary Definition
loose adj
1 not restrained or confined or attached; "a
pocket full of loose bills"; "knocked the ball loose"; "got loose
from his attacker"
2 not compact or dense in structure or
arrangement; "loose gravel" [ant: compact]
3 (of a ball in sport) not in the possession or
control of any player; "a loose ball"
4 not tight; not closely constrained or
constricted or constricting; "loose clothing"; "the large shoes
were very loose" [ant: tight]
5 not officially recognized or controlled; "an
informal agreement"; "a loose organization of the local farmers"
[syn: informal]
6 not literal; "a loose interpretation of what
she had been told"; "a free translation of the poem" [syn: free, liberal]
7 emptying easily or excessively; "loose bowels"
[syn: lax]
9 not tense or taut; "the old man's skin hung
loose and gray"; "slack and wrinkled skin"; "slack sails"; "a slack
rope" [syn: slack]
10 (of textures) full of small openings or gaps;
"an open texture"; "a loose weave" [syn: open]
11 not fixed firmly or tightly; "the bolts became
loose over time"; "a loose chair leg"; "loose bricks"
12 lacking a sense of restraint or
responsibility; "idle talk"; "a loose tongue" [syn: idle]
13 not carefully arranged in a package; "a box of
loose nails"
14 freely producing mucus; "a loose phlegmy
cough"
15 having escaped, especially from confinement;
"a convict still at large"; "searching for two escaped prisoners";
"dogs loose on the streets"; "criminals on the loose in the
neighborhood" [syn: at large(p),
at
liberty(p), escaped,
on
the loose(p)]
16 casual and unrestrained in sexual behavior;
"her easy virtue"; "he was told to avoid loose (or light) women";
"wanton behavior" [syn: easy, light, promiscuous, sluttish, wanton]
17 not bound or fastened or gathered together;
"loose pages"; "loose papers" adv : without restraint; "cows in
India are running loose" [syn: free]
Verb
1 grant freedom to; free from confinement [syn:
free, liberate, release, unloose, unloosen] [ant: confine]
2 turn loose or free from restraint; "let loose
mines"; "Loose terrible plagues upon humanity" [syn: unleash, let
loose]
4 become loose or looser or less tight; "The
noose loosened"; "the rope relaxed" [syn: loosen, relax] [ant: stiffen]
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Etymology
laussPronunciation
- /luːs/
- /lu:s/
Verb
Usage notes
- Do not confuse loose with lose.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Translations
to let loose
- Finnish: vapauttaa
- German: lösen
- Russian: освобождать/освободить (osvoboždát’/osvobodít’), отвязывать/отвязать (otvjázyvat’/otvjazát’)
to unfasten
- Finnish: irrottaa
- French: défaire
- German: lösen
- Italian: disfare
to make less tight
- Finnish: löysätä
- Portuguese: afrouxar
- Spanish: aflojar
to let go
Adjective
- Not fixed in place
tightly or firmly
- This wheelbarrow has a loose wheel
- Not held or packaged together
- You can buy apples in a pack, but they are cheaper loose
- Not bound or tethered or leashed
- The dog is loose again
- Not fitting closely
- I wear loose clothes when it is hot
- Not compact
- It is difficult walking on loose gravel
- relaxed
- She danced with a loose flowing movement
- indiscreet
- Loose talk costs lives
- promiscuous
- She is a loose woman
- rfv-sense not an adjectival definition A player who plays many hands
- rfv-sense not an adjectival definition A strategy which involves playing many hands
Synonyms
- :
- italbrac not held or packaged together: separate, unpackaged
- italbrac not bound or tethered or leashed: free, untethered
- italbrac not fitting closely: baggy
- italbrac not compact:
- italbrac relaxed: loose-limbed, relaxed
- italbrac indiscreet: indiscreet
- italbrac promiscuous: polygamous, promiscuous, slutty, tarty, whorish
Antonyms
- :
- italbrac not held or packaged together: packaged
- italbrac not bound or tethered or leashed: bound, leashed, tethered, tied, tied up
- italbrac not fitting closely: close-fitting, snug, tight
- italbrac not compact: compact, firm
- italbrac relaxed: tense, tensed
- italbrac indiscreet: discreet
- italbrac promiscuous: faithful, monogamous
Derived terms
Translations
not fixed tightly
- Finnish: löysä, irti
- German: lose
- Kurdish:
- Portuguese: frouxo
- Russian: непривязанный, неприкреплённый
- Spanish: flojo
not packaged
- Finnish: irtonainen, irto-
- German: lose
- Portuguese: desembalado
- Russian: неупакованный
- Spanish: suelto
not leashed
- Finnish: irti
- Kurdish:
- Portuguese: solto
- Russian: непривязанный, без поводка
not fitting tightly
- Finnish: väljä, avara
- Kurdish:
- Portuguese: frouxo, largo
- Russian: просторный, широкий
not compact
- Finnish: irtonainen, irto-
- Portuguese: solto
- Russian: рыхлый, неутрамбованный
relaxed
- Finnish: rento, sulava, irtonainen
- Portuguese: relaxado
- Spanish: relajado
indiscreet
- Finnish: löyhä, huolimaton
- Portuguese: indiscreto
- Russian: неосторожный, несдержанный
- Spanish: indiscreto
promiscuous
- Finnish: löyhätapainen, epäsiveellinen
- Kurdish:
- Portuguese: promíscuo
Extensive Definition
Loose may refer to: *Loose
(album), a 2006 album by Nelly Furtado
-
- Loose Mini DVD, a 2007 DVD by Nelly Furtado
- Loose the Concert, a 2007 live DVD by Nelly Furtado
- Loose (B'z album), a 1995 album by B'z
- Loose (Stooges song), a 1970 song by the Stooges
- Loose (song), a 1996 Therapy? single
- Loose, Germany
- Loose, Kent, a parish and village in southeast England
loose in German: Loose (Begriffsklärung)
loose in Dutch: Loose
loose in Russian: Loose
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
Bohemian, Paphian, abandoned, abate, absonant, adrift, affable, afloat, afoot and lighthearted,
aid, aimless, aleatoric, aleatory, alleviate, amorphous, approximate, approximative, at large,
at liberty, aweigh,
bagging, baggy, ballooning, barbarous, bate, beat-up, bedraggled, blobby, blowzy, blurred, blurry, break loose, broad, by the way, capricious, careless, cast off, cast-off,
casual, chambering, chance, chancy, chaotic, chintzy, clear, clear the way, confused, contradictory, contrary to
reason, cool off, cordial, corrupt, culpably negligent,
dangling, debauched, degage, deliver, derelict, desultory, detach, detached, deviative, diffuse, digressive, dilapidated, discharge, disconnected, discontinuous, discursive, disengage, disengaged, disenthrall, disjoin, disjointed, disordered, disorganized, disperse, dispersed, dissolute, doff, drabbletailed, draggled, draggletailed, drooping, droopy, ease, ease off, ease up, easy, easygoing, emancipate, emancipated, emit, episodic, erroneous, escape, escaped, excursive, expedite, explain, extravagant, facilitate, fallacious, familiar, fast, faulty, fire, flabby, flaccid, flapping, flawed, fled, flee, flimsy, floating, floppy, flowing, flown, foggy, folksy, footloose, footloose and
fancy-free, free, free and
easy, free as air, freeborn, freed, frowzy, frumpish, frumpy, fugitive, fuzzy, general, give out with,
go-as-you-please, go-go, gracious, grease, grease the ways, grease
the wheels, grubby,
hanging, hasten, haymish, hazy, help along, hit-or-miss,
homely, homey, ill-defined, illogical, immoderate, immoral, impotent, imprecise, improper, in disarray, in
disorder, in rags, in the clear, inaccurate, inadvertent, inattentive, inauthentic, inchoate, incoherent, inconclusive, incongruous, inconsequent, inconsequential,
inconsistent,
inconstant, incontinent, incorrect, indecisive, indefinable, indefinite, indeterminable, indeterminate, indifferent, indistinct, indulgent, inexact, infelicitous, informal, intemperate, invalid, irrational, irregular, irrepressible,
laissez-faire, lax, lenient, lessen, let down, let fly, let
go, let up, lewd, liberate, liberated, libertine, licentious, light, limp, loose-moraled, loosen, lop, lop-eared, loppy, lubricate, lumpen, make clear, make way for,
manumit, maundering, messy, mitigate, movable, mussy, natural, neglectful, neglecting, negligent, nodding, nonadhesive, noninterfering, nonrestrictive, nonscientific, nonspecific, not following,
obscure, of easy virtue,
of loose morals, off-guard, offhand, offhanded, oil, on the loose, open the way,
open up, orderless,
out of, out of control, out of hand, out of line, out of plumb, out
of square, out of true, overindulgent, overly
permissive, overpermissive, paralogical, pave the way,
permissive, perverted, plain, poky, prepare the way, procrastinating,
profligate, promiscuous, quicken, ragged, raggedy, rambling, rampant, random, reasonless, reckless, reinless, relax, relaxed, release, released, remiss, remit, remove, remove friction, rickety, riotous, rough, roving, rubbery, ruinous, run interference for,
runaway, sagging, sagging in folds,
saggy, scamping, scatter, scot-free, scraggly, seedy, self-annulling,
self-contradictory, self-refuting, senseless, separate, set free, shabby, shadowed forth, shadowy, shaky, shapeless, shoddy, shoot, simple, simplify, sit back, skimping, slack, slack off, slack up,
slacken, slake, slapdash, slatternly, slighting, slipshod, sloppy, slovenly, slurring, sluttish, smooth, smooth the way, soap the
ways, sociable,
soft, solecistic, sordid, speed, spread about, squalid, started, stochastic, streaming, swag, sweeping, tacky, take it easy, take off,
tattered, unaffected, unanchored, unassuming, unattached, unauthentic, unbar, unbend, unbind, unblock, unbolt, unbound, unbrace, unbridle, unbridled, unbuckle, unbutton, uncage, unceremonious, unchain, unchained, unchaste, unchecked, uncircumspect, unclasp, unclear, unclog, uncoerced, uncommitted, uncompelled, unconfined, unconnected, unconstrained, uncontrolled, unconventional, uncurbed, undefined, undestined, undetermined, undo, undone, unengaged, unfactual, unfasten, unfastened, unfetter, unfettered, unfixed, unforced, ungag, unglue, ungoverned, ungrammatic, unguarded, unhandcuff, unhobble, uninhibited, uninvolved, unjam, unkempt, unlace, unlash, unlatch, unleash, unlock, unloose, unloosen, unmanacle, unmastered, unmeasured, unmoored, unmuzzle, unmuzzled, unneat, unofficial, unpen, unphilosophical,
unpinion, unplain, unprecise, unreasonable, unreined, unrepressed, unreserved, unrestrained, unrestrictive, unrigorous, unruly, unscientific, unsecured, unshackle, unshackled, unsightly, unspecific, unspecified, unstick, unstrain, unstrap, unstring, unstuck, unstudied, unsubdued, unsuppressed, untether, untidy, untie, untied, untighten, untruss, unwary, unwatchful, unyoke, vague, veiled, vent, wandering, wanton, wayward, weak, weigh anchor, well out of,
whorish, wild, without
reason