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lose

verb · noun

Simple meaning

To cease to have in one's possession or capability.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

looz
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈluz

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. transitive

    To cease to have (something) in one's possession or capability.

  2. transitiveinformal

    To shed, remove, discard, or eliminate.

  3. transitive

    To have (an organ) removed from one's body, especially by accident.

  4. transitive

    To shed (weight).

  5. Suffer the loss of a person through death or removal

  6. transitive

    To experience the death of (someone to whom one has an attachment, such as a relative or friend).

noun

  1. Praise; fame; reputation.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: To cease to have (something) in one's possession or capability.

Used this way, lose is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

lose weightlose controllose sightlose interestsoon lose

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • losernounInflected form

    A contestant who loses the contest.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • lose itverbCompound term

    Lose control of one's emotions.

  • lose one's temperverbCompound term

    Get very angry and fly into a rage.

  • lose sight ofverbCompound term

    Be no longer able to see.

  • lose trackverbCompound term

    Fail to keep informed or aware.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: to cease to have (something) in one's possession

break even

Commonly Confused With

looseLose vs. LooseKnow the difference

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.