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Synonyms

lax

1 American  
[laks] / læks /

adjective

laxer, laxest

  1. not strict or severe; careless or negligent: a lax attitude toward discipline.

    lax morals;

    a lax attitude toward discipline.

  2. loose or slack; not tense, rigid, or firm: a lax handshake.

    a lax rope;

    a lax handshake.

  3. not rigidly exact or precise; vague.

    lax ideas.

  4. open, loose, or not retentive, as diarrheal bowels.

  5. (of a person) having the bowels unusually loose or open.

  6. open or not compact; having a loosely cohering structure; porous.

    lax tissue;

    lax texture.

  7. Phonetics. (of a vowel) articulated with relatively relaxed tongue muscles.

lax 2 American  
[laks] / læks /

noun

Informal.

  1. lacrosse.

    To handle my course load, I know I have to cut back on extracurricular activities, but no way am I giving up lax.
lax British  
/ læks /

adjective

  1. lacking firmness; not strict

  2. lacking precision or definition

  3. not taut

  4. phonetics (of a speech sound) pronounced with little muscular effort and consequently having relatively imprecise accuracy of articulation and little temporal duration. In English the vowel i in bit is lax

  5. (of flower clusters) having loosely arranged parts

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

  • laxity noun
  • laxly adverb
  • laxness noun
  • overlax adjective
  • overlaxly adverb
  • overlaxness noun

Etymology

Origin of lax1

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Latin laxus “loose, spacious, wide”; akin to languēre “to be sluggish, faint, unwell”; cognate with Old English slæc slack 1

Origin of lax2

First recorded in 1970–75; la(crosse) ( def. ) + x 3 ( def. ) “a cross,” (in the sense cross ( def. ), a pun on crosse, the stick used in lacrosse)

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Mark Neuman, chief investment officer at Hero Asset Management, said it should be possible to discover the identities of those who placed the trades in question, and suggested the problem resulted more from lax oversight.

From Barron's • Mar. 27, 2026

Treasury, Emirati firms handle by far the world’s highest volume of Iran’s shadow funds, exploiting opaque registries and lax rules to keep Tehran solvent.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 16, 2026

Faure-Walker told jurors Motin had a "lax attitude" and "thought he knew better than anyone else".

From BBC • Feb. 2, 2026

That’s why your credit card may be “issued” by a bank subsidiary in Utah, South Dakota or Delaware, which have lax usury limits.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 14, 2026

Selitos knew that in all the world there were only three people who could match his skill in names: Aleph, lax, and Lyra.

From "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.