Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To be unsuccessful in retaining possession of; mislay: He's always losing his car keys.
- v. To be deprived of (something one has had): lost her art collection in the fire; lost her job.
- v. To be left alone or desolate because of the death of: lost his wife.
- v. To be unable to keep alive: a doctor who has lost very few patients.
- v. To be unable to keep control or allegiance of: lost his temper at the meeting; is losing supporters by changing his mind.
- v. To fail to win; fail in: lost the game; lost the court case.
- v. To fail to use or take advantage of: Don't lose a chance to improve your position.
- v. To fail to hear, see, or understand: We lost the plane in the fog. I lost her when she started speaking about thermodynamics.
- v. To let (oneself) become unable to find the way.
- v. To remove (oneself), as from everyday reality into a fantasy world.
- v. To rid oneself of: lost five pounds.
- v. To consume aimlessly; waste: lost a week in idle occupations.
- v. To wander from or become ignorant of: lose one's way.
- v. To elude or outdistance: lost their pursuers.
- v. To be outdistanced by: chased the thieves but lost them.
- v. To become slow by (a specified amount of time). Used of a timepiece.
- v. To cause or result in the loss of: Failure to reply to the advertisement lost her the job.
- v. To cause to be destroyed. Usually used in the passive: Both planes were lost in the crash.
- v. To cause to be damned.
- v. To suffer loss.
- v. To be defeated.
- v. To operate or run slow. Used of a timepiece.
- lose out To fail to achieve or receive an expected gain.
- idiom. lose it Slang To lose control; blow up.
- idiom. lose it Slang To become deranged or mentally disturbed.
- idiom. lose it Slang To become less capable or proficient; decline.
- idiom. lose out on To miss (an opportunity, for example).
- idiom. lose time To operate too slowly. Used of a timepiece.
- idiom. lose time To delay advancement.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To miss from present possession or knowledge; part with or be parted from by misadventure; fail to keep, as something that one owns, or is in charge of or concerned for, or would keep.
- To be dispossessed, deprived, or bereaved of; be prevented or debarred from keeping, holding, or retaining; be parted from without wish or consent: as, to lose money by speculation; to lose blood by a wound; to lose one's hair by sickness; to lose a friend by death.
- To cease to have; part with through change of condition or relations; be rid of or disengaged from.
- To fail to preserve or maintain: as, to lose one's reputation or reason; to lose credit.
- To fail to gain or win; fail to grasp or secure; miss; let slip: as, to lose an opportunity; to lose a prize, a game, or a battle.
- To let slip or escape from observation, perception, etc.: as, I lost what he was saying, from inattention; we lost the ship in the fog.
- To fail to profit by; miss the use, advantage, or enjoyment of; waste.
- To cause to miss or be deprived of; subject to the loss of: as, his slowness lost him the chance.
- To displace, dislodge, or expel.
- To give over to ruin, disgrace, or shame: chiefly in the past participle.
- To be bewildered; have the thoughts or reason hopelessly perplexed or confused.
- To become abstracted or fall into a reverie; become absorbed in thought; lose consciousness, as in slumber.
- To suffer loss or deprivation.
- To incur forfeit in a contest; fail to win.
- To succumb; fail; suffer by comparison.
- n. The act of losing; loss.
- A Middle English form of loose.
- n. Praise; fame; reputation; credit.
- n. Report; news; gossip.
- To praise.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive To cause (something) to cease to be in one's possession or capability due to unfortunate or unknown circumstances, events or reasons.
- v. transitive To have (an organ) removed from one's body, especially by accident.
- v. transitive To fail to win (a game, competition, trial, etc).
- v. transitive To shed (weight); to reduce.
- v. transitive To experience the death of (someone to whom one has an attachment, such as a relative or friend).
- v. transitive To be unable to follow or trace (somebody or something) any longer.
- v. transitive, informal To shed, remove, discard, or eliminate.
- v. Of a clock, to run slower than expected.
- v. To cause (someone) the loss of something; to deprive of.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To part with unintentionally or unwillingly, as by accident, misfortune, negligence, penalty, forfeit, etc.; to be deprived of
- v. To cease to have; to possess no longer; to suffer diminution of
- v. Not to employ; to employ ineffectually; to throw away; to waste; to squander
- v. To wander from; to miss, so as not to be able to and; to go astray from.
- v. To ruin; to destroy; as destroy.
- v. To be deprived of the view of; to cease to see or know the whereabouts of.
- v. To fail to obtain or enjoy; to fail to gain or win; hence, to fail to catch with the mind or senses; to miss.
- v. rare To cause to part with; to deprive of.
- v. To prevent from gaining or obtaining.
- v. To suffer loss, disadvantage, or defeat; to be worse off, esp. as the result of any kind of contest.
WordNet 3.0
- v. place (something) where one cannot find it again
- v. fail to keep or to maintain; cease to have, either physically or in an abstract sense
- v. retreat.
- v. fail to make money in a business; make a loss or fail to profit
- v. miss from one's possessions; lose sight of
- v. fail to perceive or to catch with the senses or the mind
- v. fail to get or obtain
- v. suffer the loss of a person through death or removal
- v. fail to win
- v. allow to go out of sight
- v. be set at a disadvantage
Etymologies
- Old English losian (Wiktionary)
- Middle English losen, from Old English losian, to perish, from los, loss. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The one sure way to lose is to pick Hillary for VP.”
“If you play it over and over, without a break between repetitions, you’ll probably find that it becomes weird to you—the same way saying “purple” over and over makes the word lose its meaning.”
“This is what we call a lose / lose situation, because the cops will either have no sense of humor and arrest you for public intoxication, or they will try to fuck with you and snicker amongst themselves while telling you to give it your best shot.”
“If he went the way of the Republicans, we would once again lose stature in the world and Iran would be able to put the blame on the US for the riots.”
“The only people who stand to lose from a universal health plan are the bloodsuckers who are making billions by keeping you and the doctor apart.”
Republicans raising cash to counter-program ABC Obama special
“THE BAD NEWS: The one senior that Utah State does lose is a key one -- point guard Jared Quayle, a first-team All-WAC selection who did everything well.”
“All we have to lose is our self-concept of an egalitarian society ...”
Cheers for a Two-Tier Society, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Rae thinking what Jack stands to lose is his team ... in some fashion ... maybe they will lose him.”
“The only thing you might have to lose is your clothing.”
“Financial analysts are scrambling to forecast which businesses will win or lose from the power shift in Moscow, which accounts for almost one-quarter of Russia's economy and where politics and money are tightly entwined.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘lose’.
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EN - confusables
Similar words meaning different things
accept, except, adverse, averse, advice, advise, affect, effect, aisle, isle, all together, altogether and 134 more...
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FUN - Beatles song titles
Typical words from Beatles song titles. Can you recreate the titles?
(Grammatical words have been omitted)polythene, Sun King, rhythm and blues, taxman, tripper, monkey business, mailman, matchbox, rock and roll, ooh, blue jay, reprise and 388 more...
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EN - pronunciation fun
All words of the poem
The Chaos
by Gerard Nolst Trenité
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse <...abyss, ache, actual, advice, aerie, age, ague, aisles, alas, alien, alive, allowed and 406 more...
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On with their heads!
Words that make other words with the addition of one letter at the beginning. The resulting words are tagged "behead".
men, his, yes, any, iota, limb, aged, laid, land, lead, read, word and 327 more...
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Words that can be spelled on an upsid...
Imagine my joy when I was wearing my calculator watch and was first introduced to someone named Leslie - there was exactly enough room on the display for 317537.14.
Edit: I've discove...hi, hello, leslie, sheesh, she, bells, hells, hog, boss, goggles, he, bob and 233 more...
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Words with unusual spellings or pronu...
Herein are listed words with oddball spellings and words whose pronunciation does not reflect the spelling.
eleemosynary, Wednesday, colonel, posslq, zaqqum, qwerty, cinquefoil, qibla(h), minuscule, Cholmondeley, polyphloisboian, ptisan and 67 more...
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Test words
vacation, tourist, tourist office, travel, read, newspaper, book, magazine, television, music, radio, nightclub and 68 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Chainlink's Words
hat, opalescent, opal, emerald, sapphire, scythe, carnival, calliope, brilliant, awesome, feather, fantastic and 268 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
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Activated Phonemes
This list was generated by first taking a letter from the alphabet, or any of the initial cluster set of phonesthemes compiled by the ingenious Benjamin Shisler) and then sticking one of the suffix...
bing, ding, ging, jing, ling, ming, king, ping, ring, sing, ting, wing and 189 more...
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The Wørd
Trademark of Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report.
truthiness, bacchanalia, disappointed, love handles, pussy, overrated, perspective, quitter, alito, camilla-mania, cat, shhhh!... and 335 more...
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number1
love, hurt, stop, no, hate, new, start, stay, forever, wont, let, you and 20 more...
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clevenback's Words
deck chairs, recovery, anonymous, exploratory, laparotomy, laparoscopy, adjuvant, neoadjuvant, fellowship, fellow, deputy, administrative and 15 more...
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OM1 Lesson 7
limp, ankle, twist, light bulb, balance, lose, ladder, fall off, cart, shopping cart, meat, snacks and 11 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for lose.

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