- loose
- loose adj Loose, relaxed, slack, lax are comparable when meaning not tightly bound, held, restrained, or stretched.Loose is the widest of these terms in its range of application. It is referable, for example, to persons or things that are free from a usual or a temporary restraint, whether that restraint is material (as a rope, a bond, a fetter, or a prison) or immaterial (as a rule, a principle, or a law){
we found the boat loose after the storm
}{the bull is loose in the field
}{finally he worked his hand loose
}{some sheets of this book are loose
}{loose[/i] thinking, unrestrained by concern for logic or accuracy
}{loose talk that pays scant attention to its consequences or the truth of its statements
}{loose habits
}{loose living
}Loose is also applicable to what is not firmly or tightly held by, attached to, connected with, or fitted to something that supports or guides, or something that it is intended to cover{drive with loose reins
}{a loose belt
}{a loose coat
}{loose joints
}{a loose sense of a word
}Often the word applies to a substance or fabric having particles or filaments which are not close or compact in arrangement{loose soil
}{a loose weave
}Relaxed implies a loss of some tightness, tension, strictness, or rigidity, rather than total freedom from restraint or considerable departure from a normal state (as of discipline, fitness, or firmness); not only does it not suggest wildness, lawlessness, or immorality, but it rarely suggests anything worse than an easing up, a mitigation, an alleviation of strain, or a softening{relaxed discipline
}{relaxed nerves
}{Augustus during these months was suffering from the relaxed and surfeited mood which always attends success— Buchan
}{White House family life had been easy and relaxed . . . but it had maintained the standards of gentlefolk— S. H. Adams
}{the relaxed attitude of the British toward the sedition expressed every day in Hyde Park— R. K. Carr
}Slack (see also NEGLIGENT) comes close to relaxed in its limitations and implications but it may stress lack of firmness or steadiness rather than a release from strain or severity; thus, a slack rope is one that is not taut, usually one that is not as taut as is necessary or desirable; a slack hold is a weak, unsteady hold{the tired arms lie with every sinew slack—Quiller-Couch
}{a pair of sly, keen eyes are dancing in his slack, clown's face— New Yorker
}{the rhythms often are indistinguishable from those of prose and the effect is often flat and slack— Drew
}Slack is applied both to business or work that is subject to periods of lessened activity and to the periods or seasons when business is dull or work is hard to find{it'll be play to me after I've done my day's work, or any odd bits o' time when the work's slack— George Eliot
}{the slack season for carpenters
}Like slack, lax usually stresses lack of steadiness, firmness, and tone{felt the lax droop of her shoulder against his arm— Wylie
}{sat there in one of those loose lax poses that came to her naturally— Woolf
}In application to nonmaterial things it is not always clearly distinguishable from other senses in which its primary stress is on lack of necessary strictness, severity, or precision (see lax under NEGLIGENT){his laws were in advance of general public opinion, an opinion which grew laxer as the years passed— Buchan
}{the old unity . . . has been replaced by a new unity based on the principles of chivalry and courtly love .... This unity is relatively lax and slight— R. A. Hall
}Analogous words: *limp, flabby, flaccid, flimsy: *free, independent: disengaged, detached (see DETACH): casual, desultory, hit-or-miss, happy-go-lucky, *random, haphazard: *negligent, remiss, lax, slack: *careless, heedless, thoughtlessAntonyms: tight: strict
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
