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.

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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.

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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

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Other Word Forms

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

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)

Explanation

Those parents who let their kids eat all their Halloween candy the night of October 31st? Their parenting style might be described as lax. A paperclip chain used as a bike lock? That's an example of lax security. While contemplating the word lax, you may note that it's the same as the first syllable in laxative. This is not a coincidence: lax entered English as a noun describing a substance taken or administered to relax the bowels. Interestingly, the modern definition of lax is closer to the Latin source word, laxus — an adjective meaning "loose." Now, lax can refer to any phenomenon that is insufficiently stringent or so slack as to be basically ineffectual. For example, "The entire class performed incredibly well on the test, largely due to the sleepy professor's lax supervision."

Example Sentences

If employers are lax in their oversight, workers might find themselves overpaying to invest in funds that underperform.

From Salon • Jul. 9, 2026

The bombing of LaGuardia came at a time when airport security was, from today’s vantage, unimaginably lax.

From Slate • Jul. 7, 2026

As a result, a lax Fed will lead to higher, not lower, long-term rates.

From MarketWatch • Jun. 29, 2026

But the bans have become ineffective due to lax enforcement and because private-equity firms have devised workarounds to get economic and operational control of medical practices without violating the laws, Rooke-Ley said.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 14, 2026

Izio had said the guards were often lax.

From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron

Related Words

• careless
• indifferent
• lenient
• negligent
• sloppy
• soft
• vague