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
• 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

Lenders everywhere might have grown lax, which is why fraud-related defaults at some financial companies have rattled bank stocks.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 29, 2026

Justice Department, Curtis said he had learned of lax security and potential ballot stuffing in 2024, the year of the attempted recall against Crye.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 25, 2026

The Cour des Comptes said the state had been lax in not checking the credentials of the 30,000 dealers to whom it allows access to the SIV.

From BBC • Mar. 12, 2026

Maritime accidents occur regularly in Indonesia, a Southeast Asian archipelago of around 17,000 islands, often due to lax safety standards or bad weather.

From Barron's • Jan. 4, 2026

He sank down on a chair in a trembling stupor, his stumpy, lax hands quaking in his lap.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller

Related Words

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