1 to make sth less tight or firmly fixed; to become less tight or firmly fixed:
[VN] First loosen the nuts, then take off the wheel. * [V] The rope holding the boat loosened.
2 [VN] to make a piece of clothing, hair, etc. loose, when it has been tied or fastened
3 [VN] ~ your hands, hold, etc. to hold sb/sth less tightly:
He loosened his grip and let her go. * (figurative) The military regime has not loosened its hold on power.
4 [VN] to make sth weaker or less controlled than before:
The party has loosened its links with trade unions.
OPPTIGHTEN
IDIOMS
loosen sb's tongue to make sb talk more freely than usual:
A bottle of wine had loosened Harry's tongue.
PHRASALVERBS
loosen up to relax and stop worrying:
Come on, Jo. Loosen up.
loosen up
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for loosen is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is loosen a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, loosen is tagged as verb.
Does loosen appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — loosen appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
