Q: How can we get everyone to quit using “loose” when they mean “lose”? It’s driving me insane!
A: The word “lose” is usually a verb with the sense of failing to win or hold on to something, while “loose” is usually an adjective meaning not securely attached, or less commonly a verb meaning to release or set free.
But as you’ve noticed, some people spell “lose” with an extra “o” in casual writing, a usage that some language references suggest may be influenced by the double “o” in “choose,” a word that rhymes with “lose.”
Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage (4th ed.), for example, says, “Possibly because lose is pronounced like choose, there is a common tendency to write that meaning with two letter os.”
Similarly, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary says, “the fact that lose rhymes so well with choose seems to prompt many people to assume that it too should contain a second O.”
Nevertheless, the spelling of “lose” as “loose” is relatively rare in contemporary books, newspapers, magazines, and other edited writing, both online and off. Garner’s Modern English Usage (4th ed.) describes it as Stage 1, the earliest level, in its Language Change Index.
Interestingly, the “oo” usage was fairly common in the early Modern English of the late 16th and 17th centuries, when Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon, and other writers used “loose” for “lose.” Here are a few examples from the Oxford English Dictionary:
• “At length, the left winge of the Arcadians began to loose ground” (from The Countesse of Pembrokes Arcadia, 1590, by Sir Philip Sidney).
• “I thanke thee, thou shalt not loose by it” (from The Taming of the Shrew, written in the early 1590s by Shakespeare). We’ve expanded the cited comment by Petruchio in Act 1, Scene 2, one of many passages in Shakespeare’s plays that use “loose” in the modern sense of “lose.”
• “As to a monoculos [one-eyed man] it is more to loose one eye, then to a man that hath two eyes” (Of Coulers of Good & Euill, 1597, by Francis Bacon). In the title, “coulers” (colors) refers to questionable arguments or reasons.
• “The tempting stream, with one small drop to loose / In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe” (Paradise Lost, 1667, by Milton). We’ve expanded the citation, which describes the desire of the fallen angels to drink from the river Lethe and lose their torment in forgetfulness.
Our standard spelling and pronunciation of “lose” and “loose” evolved in Old English, Middle English, and early Modern English, according to the OED.
When “lose” first appeared in Old English, it was spelled losien, according to the dictionary, but in Middle English it was variously losie, losien, losse, loss, loose, and lose.
As for “loose,” it was originally leowsin in Middle English, then lauce, laus, lowss, loyse, lous, lose, loiss, losyn, louce, louss, loss, looce, looze, los, loase, lows, lowis, lewce, leuse, and loose.
By the middle to late 18th century, language authorities had recognized the standard modern spelling and pronunciation, but much of the population hadn’t got the word.
In A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), Samuel Johnson spelled “lose” and “loose” the now-standard ways in their various senses.
And in A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (1791), John Walker pronounced “lose” as LOOZ, and “loose” as LOOS. Walker uses an inverted circumflex over each “o” to indicate a “slender o,” like those in “do” and “soon.”
But a century later, language authorities were still commenting on the spelling of “lose” as “loose.” The entry for “lose” in The Century Dictionary (1889), for example, describes the verb as “formerly also loose” and “more or less confused with loose, untie, relax.”
And yet another century later, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage (1994), points out that “this error is rare in edited material but fairly common in casual writing. A quick look in any dictionary is all that is needed to avoid it.”
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