lax
1 Americanadjective
-
not strict or severe; careless or negligent: a lax attitude toward discipline.
lax morals;
a lax attitude toward discipline.
-
loose or slack; not tense, rigid, or firm: a lax handshake.
a lax rope;
a lax handshake.
-
not rigidly exact or precise; vague.
lax ideas.
-
open, loose, or not retentive, as diarrheal bowels.
-
(of a person) having the bowels unusually loose or open.
-
open or not compact; having a loosely cohering structure; porous.
lax tissue;
lax texture.
-
Phonetics. (of a vowel) articulated with relatively relaxed tongue muscles.
noun
adjective
-
lacking firmness; not strict
-
lacking precision or definition
-
not taut
-
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
-
(of flower clusters) having loosely arranged parts
Other Word Forms
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."
Vocabulary lists containing lax
List 2
Looking to grow your vocabulary? Check out this interactive, curated word list from our team of English language specialists at Vocabulary.com – one of over 17,000 lists we've built to help learners worldwide!
And Then There Were None
Interested in learning more words like this one? Our team at Vocabulary.com has got you covered! You can review flashcards, quiz yourself, practice spelling, and more – and it's all completely free to use!
Essential Three-Letter Words, Part 3
Want to remember this word for good? Start your learning journey today with our library of interactive, themed word lists built by the experts at Vocabulary.com – we'll help you make the most of your study time!
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.
See Examples For:
The farmer has criticized security services for lax security around the base and for leaving residents exposed.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026
Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Jacob Coxon -- who resigned from Anthropic and previously worked at OpenAI -- publicly accused both startups of lax security standards and "gambling with our lives."
From Barron's ● Sep. 13, 2026
Fires in large buildings are frequent in Pakistan, often due to poor safety laws and building codes as well as lax enforcement.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
Pakistan has dealt with a number of major fires in recent years, often due to poor safety laws and building codes as well as lax enforcement.
From BBC ● Aug. 26, 2026
Thanks in great part to the lax divorce laws in Nevada, my parents were officially single again.
From "Americanized" by Sara Saedi
In addition to flagging the Fed’s own shortcomings, that report pinned much of the blame on the bank’s executives and on a shift toward laxer regulatory policy.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 18, 2026
In fact, Florida, everywhere, has become a storage locker for juice from Brazil, where the land is cheaper, the regulations laxer, and the chemicals are cheaper, too.
From Slate ● Apr. 20, 2026
More than two decades ago the country experienced what author Helen Gordon described as a "Saharan gold rush", fuelled in part by laxer regulations and a more stable political environment than some of its neighbours.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 2025
And open-access publishers that charge authors to publish their work also have an incentive to publish as much as possible, which could lead to laxer quality control.
From Science Magazine ● May 31, 2024
Clearly the laxer disciples felt the Master's hand to be somewhat heavy and we might have guessed as much.
From Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 1 by Sir Charles Eliot
He labelled the licensing system as the "laxest in Europe" as he pointed out the UK was one of only three countries to rely upon self-reporting of visual conditions affecting the ability to drive.
From BBC ● Apr. 18, 2025
But as a rapidly gentrifying city with some of the highest income inequality in the nation — and in a state with some of the laxest gun laws — gang culture has changed.
From New York Times ● Jan. 13, 2023
Today California has some of the laxest rules on the subject in the country.
From Economist ● Dec. 8, 2016
While the rest of my physique is mediocre by the laxest standards, I started adulthood with an exemplary foot.
From The New Yorker ● May 16, 2016
The African schism insisted on the laxest possible line of action, namely, to receive indiscriminately without proof of penitence.
From Confession and Absolution by Thomas John Capel
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions 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.
