looseness

From loose +‎ -ness.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈluːsnəs/

• Audio (US):

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looseness (plural loosenesses)

1. The quality or fact of being free from rigidity, attachment or restraint; not tight, not firmly attached or taut.

   See if that nut has too much looseness and tighten it if it does.

2. A relaxed state regarding principles or accuracy.
3. Moral laxity; licentiousness.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     Yet goodly court he made still to his Dame, / Pourd out in loosnesse on the grassy grownd [...].

• nooseless