"loosen up" meaning in English

See loosen up in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: loosens up [present, singular, third-person], loosening up [participle, present], loosened up [participle, past], loosened up [past]
Etymology: Compare Old Norse leysa upp (“loosen up”). Etymology templates: {{cog|non|leysa upp||loosen up}} Old Norse leysa upp (“loosen up”) Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} loosen up (third-person singular simple present loosens up, present participle loosening up, simple past and past participle loosened up)
  1. (intransitive) To become loose; to loosen; to relax (a muscle, etc.). Tags: intransitive
    Sense id: en-loosen_up-en-verb-BCBcmnks Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs formed with "up", Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 45 55 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs formed with "up": 46 54 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 46 54 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 46 54
  2. (colloquial) To relax; to act less seriously. Tags: colloquial
    Sense id: en-loosen_up-en-verb-bYn0y9~B Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English phrasal verbs formed with "up", Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 45 55 Disambiguation of English phrasal verbs formed with "up": 46 54 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 46 54 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 46 54

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "non",
        "2": "leysa upp",
        "3": "",
        "4": "loosen up"
      },
      "expansion": "Old Norse leysa upp (“loosen up”)",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Compare Old Norse leysa upp (“loosen up”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "loosens up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosening up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosened up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosened up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "loosen up (third-person singular simple present loosens up, present participle loosening up, simple past and past participle loosened up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "45 55",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "46 54",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"up\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
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          "_dis": "46 54",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
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        {
          "_dis": "46 54",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To become loose; to loosen; to relax (a muscle, etc.)."
      ],
      "id": "en-loosen_up-en-verb-BCBcmnks",
      "links": [
        [
          "loose",
          "loose"
        ],
        [
          "loosen",
          "loosen"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive) To become loose; to loosen; to relax (a muscle, etc.)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "45 55",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "46 54",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English phrasal verbs formed with \"up\"",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "46 54",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "46 54",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1983 December 31, Kenneth Hale-Wehmann, “The Business of Sex and Affection”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 24, page 8:",
          "text": "Michael in turn benefits from Tom. He loosens up a bit, stops talking so much like one of the bad novels he used to read, and learns to give his intellect a rest once in a while in deference to the emotions.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To relax; to act less seriously."
      ],
      "id": "en-loosen_up-en-verb-bYn0y9~B",
      "links": [
        [
          "relax",
          "relax"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) To relax; to act less seriously."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "loosen up"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English phrasal verbs",
    "English phrasal verbs formed with \"up\"",
    "English verbs",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "non",
        "2": "leysa upp",
        "3": "",
        "4": "loosen up"
      },
      "expansion": "Old Norse leysa upp (“loosen up”)",
      "name": "cog"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Compare Old Norse leysa upp (“loosen up”).",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "loosens up",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosening up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosened up",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "loosened up",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "loosen up (third-person singular simple present loosens up, present participle loosening up, simple past and past participle loosened up)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English intransitive verbs"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To become loose; to loosen; to relax (a muscle, etc.)."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "loose",
          "loose"
        ],
        [
          "loosen",
          "loosen"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive) To become loose; to loosen; to relax (a muscle, etc.)."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "intransitive"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English colloquialisms",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1983 December 31, Kenneth Hale-Wehmann, “The Business of Sex and Affection”, in Gay Community News, volume 11, number 24, page 8:",
          "text": "Michael in turn benefits from Tom. He loosens up a bit, stops talking so much like one of the bad novels he used to read, and learns to give his intellect a rest once in a while in deference to the emotions.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To relax; to act less seriously."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "relax",
          "relax"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(colloquial) To relax; to act less seriously."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "colloquial"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "loosen up"
}

Download raw JSONL data for loosen up meaning in English (1.9kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-12-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-11-21 using wiktextract (94ba7e1 and 5dea2a6). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.