Etymologically
Log in

lax

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the English word lax

Pronunciation

lax1 salmon

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
800 before 800, Corpus Glossary
Inherited from
Old English leax via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Germanic *lahsaz

Etymology

The salmon is inherited from Middle English lax, also lex,[2] inherited from Old English leax, also læx and lex,[3][2][4] from Proto-Germanic *lahsaz.[5][6] It is cognate with Old High German lahs, German Lachs, Old Norse lax, Swedish lax and Danish laks,[5][4][7] and outside Germanic with Lithuanian lašiša and Latvian lasis, all meaning salmon, and with Tocharian B laks (“fish”).[5][7][6][8] Hoad thinks the Old English word died out and that the Scandinavian word, taken over in the 13th century, stayed in local use until the 17th;[9] the OED and Etymonline say it survived only in the north and in Scotland, and Merriam-Webster takes the modern word partly from Norwegian laks.[5][10][8] The same Germanic word gave lox through Yiddish.[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A salmon: the Old English word is recorded before 800, in the Corpus Glossary.[5][4] In Middle English it occurs as lex in a gloss of about 1225 and as lax in Havelok (about 1300), and also in surnames and place names;[2] Barnhart notes the place name Lexemer (1187).[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Once the ordinary word for the fish, it gave way to salmon and was later used mainly of a Scandinavian or Scottish salmon.[5][10][11] In Scotland a lax-fisher was a salmon fisher, and in Shetland a laksi-gert was a salmon weir.[12]

Timeline

  • before 800 – Old English leax, læx, a salmon.[4][5]
  • 1187 – in the place name Lexemer.[4]
  • c. 1300 – lax, in Havelok.[2][4]
  • 1722 – lax-fishers, salmon fishers, in Aberdeenshire.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (rare) A salmon, especially one from Norway or Sweden.[11][8][5]

lax2 loose, not strict

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1373
Borrowed from
Latin laxus
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *sleg-
Etymology tree of lax2
inherited borrowed derived
Latin laxus
English lax
From the same root · lax2
Latin laxe ← laxus
Latin laxitas ← laxus

Etymology

The adjective is borrowed from Latin laxus (“wide, loose, open”),[10][4][13][5][11] from a suffixed form of Proto-Indo-European *sleg- (“to be slack, be languid”).[10][13][4] The Latin word is related to langueō (“to be faint, languish”),[5][4][7][14] and is probably cognate with the Germanic adjective that gave slack.[5][11][15] The verb, now rare, is borrowed from Latin laxō (“to loosen”), from the same adjective.[5][8][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Loose or open: Barnhart dates the word to 1373.[16][4] The OED's first record, from Mandeville's Travels of about 1400, is of the bowels, acting easily or loose,[5][17][10] and the verb, to loosen or purge, is recorded before 1398 in Trevisa.[5]

Semantic evolution

From the bowels the word spread to anything slack or loosely held.[5] About 1450 it was first used of rules, discipline and conduct that are not strict,[5][10][4] the sense that is now most common.[18][19] In the 17th century it was used of loose tissue or soil (1615), loose clothes (1621) and anything not taut (1660),[5] and Milton wrote Inhabit lax, ye pow'rs of heav'n! (1667) in the Latin sense "with plenty of room".[5][20] Botanists used it from 1796 of loosely arranged flower clusters,[5] and phoneticians from 1909 of vowels spoken with relaxed muscles, the opposite of tense.[5][18] A noun lax, looseness of the bowels, was used from about 1529;[5][11] by the 19th century it survived, also as lask, in Scotland and in dialects from Yorkshire and Lancashire to Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Somerset, especially of scouring in cattle.[12][8]

Timeline

  • 1373 – loose, open.[4]
  • before 1398 – verb, to loosen, relax, purge (obsolete by 1685).[5]
  • c. 1400 – of the bowels, loose.[5][10]
  • c. 1450 – of rules or conduct, not strict.[5][4]
  • c. 1529 – noun, looseness of the bowels.[5]
  • 1615 – of tissue or soil, loosely compacted.[5]
  • 1660 – slack, not tense.[5]
  • 1796 – in botany, of loosely arranged parts.[5]
  • 1909 – in phonetics, of a vowel spoken with relaxed muscles.[5]
  • 1968 – verb, in phonetics, to make a vowel lax.[5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Not strict, firm or careful enough; negligent: Checks at the warehouse had become lax.[19][8][18]
  2. Not taut or rigid; slack or relaxed.[19][8][5]
  3. Not exact or precise; vague.[19][5]
  4. Of the bowels: loose, acting easily.[8][5][21]
  5. (phonetics) Of a speech sound, especially a vowel: produced with the speech muscles relaxed.[19][18][5]
  6. (botany) Of a flower cluster: loose and open, with its parts spaced apart.[19][5]

Noun

  1. (dialect) Looseness of the bowels; diarrhoea.[8][5][12]

Verb

  1. (phonetics) To pronounce a vowel with the speech muscles relaxed.[5][11]
  2. (obsolete except in Scots) To loosen or relax.[11][5][8]

Word family

  • laxly
  • laxness
  • overlax
  • laxism
  • laxist

lax3 lacrosse

Confidence
Established
Formation
Clipping
First attested
1951 E. Taylor, Game of Hide-and-seek
Ultimate origin
French la crosse
Etymology tree of lax3
inherited borrowed derived
English lacrosse
English lax

Etymology

The game is a clipping from English lacrosse, with the letter x standing for the ending, read as if it were the word cross.[5][8][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lacrosse: 1951, in E. Taylor's Game of Hide-and-seek.[5][8][10]

Timeline

Meanings

Noun

  1. (informal) Lacrosse.[8][11][5]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
  7. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  12. ^ a b c d Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  13. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  16. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
  17. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  18. ^ a b c d Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  19. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  20. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  21. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Lax.” Etymologically, 31 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/lax. Accessed 31 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·