NRTC English: lose, lost, loss, loose, and loosen

If you lose your car, it means you are unable to find it. A pregnant woman can also lose her baby (have a miscarriage or suffer the death of (a baby) during childbirth). In another vein, one can lose weight or gain weight. A team may lose a game (fail to win).

Using lose in idiomatic expressions

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lose heart: to become sad or hopeless e.g try not to lose heart, there are plenty of other jobs.

lose it: to become very angry or upset e.g she completely lost it with one of the kids in class.

Whatever you lose will be called your loss or losses. If you lose your car, your car then becomes your loss because you have lost it. Lost is the past tense and past participle of lose. E.g i. I lost my dad seven years ago. ii.The woman lost it.

As an adjective, loose means not firmly or tightly fixed in place. E.g a loose tooth, she slipped into a loose T-shirt.

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As a verb, it means set free, release. E.g The dog has been loosed (released).

Loose can also mean untie or undo. E.g i. The ropes were loosed. ii. When are you going to loose your hair?

Some useful idioms

break/get loose means to escape. The inmate broke loose from the sheriff’s yesterday.

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Be at a loose end means to have nothing to do: I was at a loose end so I decided to go see an old movie.

Loosen, however, means to make less tight or less firmly tightened, but not to set free completely, like loosen your tie/shoelaces/bolt.