Loosely

//ˈluːsli// adv

adv ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    In a loose manner.

    "Then she fell back on the altar and her fingers dangled loosely on its edge, her feet uncrossed and lay beside each other."

  2. 2
    Not tightly.

    "Insert all the bolts loosely, then tighten them."

  3. 3
    Approximately.

    "It's red, to use the term loosely, sort of brown and sort of orange, let's call it reddish."

  4. 4
    Used to indicate an imprecise use of words; short for loosely speaking

    "A whale is, loosely, maybe very loosely, a fish."

Adverb
  1. 1
    structurally open and not compact or close wordnet
  2. 2
    in a relaxed manner; not rigid wordnet
  3. 3
    without regard to specific details or exceptions wordnet
  4. 4
    in a loose manner wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
aboutall butalmostapartapproachingapproximately

Example

More examples

"Mary removed the band from her ponytail and allowed her hair to fall loosely about her neck."

Etymology

From Middle English lously; equivalent to loose + -ly.

Related phrases

loosely-typedsit loosely

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.