loosen

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English losnen, also lousnen and lesnen,^[2][3][4] formed from Middle English loos + -nen.^[5] The OED derives it from the adjective loose and the suffix -en,^[6][7][8] Etymonline from the verb loose,^[4] and the MED from the Middle English verb losen; the MED takes the form lesnen as a blend with lesen.^[2] Loose is from Old Norse lauss (“loose, free, unencumbered”), from Proto-Germanic *lausaz, from Proto-Indo-European *leu- (“to loosen, divide, cut apart”), and is related to -less.^[4][6] Old Norse had a similar verb, losna (“to become loose”), formed from the weak grade of the same root,^[6][9] and the MED compares lausn.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To free someone from bonds or from sin: before 1333, in the poems of Herebert.^[2] The OED's first record is in the Wycliffite translation of the Psalms (1382), in the sense to set free or release.^[6][4]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, setting a person free, is now obsolete except in poetry and dialect;^[6] its figurative use survives mainly in to loosen someone's tongue, recorded from Milton (1645).^[6][7] The sense of undoing a knot or bond, and then of making something less tight, dates from about 1382,^[6][2] and Johnson (1755) gave "to relax any thing tied" as the first sense.^[10] From the 17th century the verb was used for detaching something (1667, in Milton's Paradise Lost)^[6] and intransitively, for becoming loose, since the 1670s.^[4][6] Medical use for relieving the bowels dates from 1587, and for making a cough looser from 1833.^[6] Relaxing a rule or discipline is recorded from 1803, in Malthus.^[6] With up it became American colloquial in 1908 for giving money willingly or talking freely,^[6] and since 1955 it has meant to limber up before exercise.^[6][4] Shakespeare used it in King Lear (1608) for estranging people, a sense that did not last.^[6]

Timeline

• before 1333 – to free someone from bonds or from sin.^[2]
• 1382 – to set free, release (now obsolete except in poetry and dialect).^[6]
• before 1382 – to undo a bond or knot; later, to make less tight.^[6]
• 1587 – to relieve the bowels.^[6]
• 1608 – to estrange people (obsolete).^[6]
• 1645 – figurative, to loosen someone's tongue.^[6]
• 1667 – to weaken the attachment of something, detach it.^[6]
• 1678 – intransitive, to become loose.^[6][4]
• 1697 – to make soil or the like less compact.^[6]
• 1803 – to relax in strictness.^[6]
• 1908 – loosen up, US colloquial, to give money or talk freely.^[6]
• 1955 – loosen up, to limber up before exercise.^[6][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make or become less tight, firm or fixed: She loosened the lid of the jar.^[11][5][6]
2. To make something less compact or rigid, as soil.^[11][5][10]
3. To untie or undo.^[11][6]
4. To let loose, set free; also, to make a person talk more freely: The wine loosened his tongue.^[11][5][7]
5. To make or become less strict or severe: The government loosened its controls on imports.^[11][6]
6. To relieve the bowels of constipation.^[11][6]
7. loosen up: to relax; to limber up before exercise.^[11][6]

Word family

• loosener
• loosen up

Related words

• loose
• unloosen
• lose
• -less
• loss

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ 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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins