"play fast and loose" meaning in English

See play fast and loose in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-play fast and loose.ogg [Australia] Forms: plays fast and loose [present, singular, third-person], playing fast and loose [participle, present], played fast and loose [participle, past], played fast and loose [past]
Etymology: From the con game fast and loose. Etymology templates: {{m|en|fast and loose}} fast and loose Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} play fast and loose (third-person singular simple present plays fast and loose, present participle playing fast and loose, simple past and past participle played fast and loose)
  1. (idiomatic) To ignore proper behavior or social conventions, especially when it suits one's purpose. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-play_fast_and_loose-en-verb-8-TFhJQ7
  2. (idiomatic) To be recklessly inaccurate, inappropriate, or otherwise ignoring guidelines and conventions. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-play_fast_and_loose-en-verb-MshItO8B Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 41 54 5
  3. (idiomatic) To act in a tricky, inconstant way, saying one thing and doing another. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-play_fast_and_loose-en-verb-4RWZ7TN0

Download JSON data for play fast and loose meaning in English (2.4kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fast and loose"
      },
      "expansion": "fast and loose",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From the con game fast and loose.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plays fast and loose",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "playing fast and loose",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played fast and loose",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played fast and loose",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "play fast and loose (third-person singular simple present plays fast and loose, present participle playing fast and loose, simple past and past participle played fast and loose)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I cannot say that there were any outright lies in the editorial, but it does play fast and loose with the truth.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To ignore proper behavior or social conventions, especially when it suits one's purpose."
      ],
      "id": "en-play_fast_and_loose-en-verb-8-TFhJQ7",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To ignore proper behavior or social conventions, especially when it suits one's purpose."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "41 54 5",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be recklessly inaccurate, inappropriate, or otherwise ignoring guidelines and conventions."
      ],
      "id": "en-play_fast_and_loose-en-verb-MshItO8B",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be recklessly inaccurate, inappropriate, or otherwise ignoring guidelines and conventions."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "glosses": [
        "To act in a tricky, inconstant way, saying one thing and doing another."
      ],
      "id": "en-play_fast_and_loose-en-verb-4RWZ7TN0",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To act in a tricky, inconstant way, saying one thing and doing another."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-play fast and loose.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0b/En-au-play_fast_and_loose.ogg/En-au-play_fast_and_loose.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/En-au-play_fast_and_loose.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "play fast and loose"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English terms with audio links",
    "English verbs"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fast and loose"
      },
      "expansion": "fast and loose",
      "name": "m"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From the con game fast and loose.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plays fast and loose",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "playing fast and loose",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played fast and loose",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played fast and loose",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "play fast and loose (third-person singular simple present plays fast and loose, present participle playing fast and loose, simple past and past participle played fast and loose)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms",
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "I cannot say that there were any outright lies in the editorial, but it does play fast and loose with the truth.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To ignore proper behavior or social conventions, especially when it suits one's purpose."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To ignore proper behavior or social conventions, especially when it suits one's purpose."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be recklessly inaccurate, inappropriate, or otherwise ignoring guidelines and conventions."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be recklessly inaccurate, inappropriate, or otherwise ignoring guidelines and conventions."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English idioms"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To act in a tricky, inconstant way, saying one thing and doing another."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To act in a tricky, inconstant way, saying one thing and doing another."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-play fast and loose.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/0b/En-au-play_fast_and_loose.ogg/En-au-play_fast_and_loose.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/En-au-play_fast_and_loose.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "play fast and loose"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.