LAX • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Lax

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adjective

Lax adj. (compar. laxer; superl. laxest)

Not tense, firm, or rigid; loose; slack; as, a lax bandage; lax fiber. "The flesh of that sort of fish being lax and spongy."

Not strict or stringent; not exact; loose; weak; vague; equivocal. "The discipline was lax." "Society at that epoch was lenient, if not lax, in matters of the passions." "The word "aeternus" itself is sometimes of a lax signification."

Having a looseness of the bowels; diarrheal.

Synonyms: Loose; slack; vague; unconfined; unrestrained; dissolute; licentious.

noun

Lax n. A looseness; diarrhea.

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Etymology of 'Lax'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Lax" Quotes from Famous Books

... and one. You hear of even immoral or irreligious books being written by men of decent character; there is a late writer who says that David Hume's sceptical works are not at all the picture of the man. A priest may write a treatise which would be called really lax on the subject of lying, which might come under the condemnation of the holy see, as some treatises on that score have been condemned, and yet in his own person be a rigorist. And, in fact, it is notorious ...

— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... Mastership was also weakened by the practice of electing very old men to the post, as the short tenure of the office and the feebleness of its holder meant a lax control over the turbulent Knights. This practice became very common in the last two centuries of the Order's existence. But many of the Grand Masters, though over seventy at the time of election, disappointed expectation by living till ...

— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen

... notorious Romanizer I have since discovered, should not have exercised more care in the supervision of his nephew, a fellow scholar with my own son at Haverton House. It appears that Mr. Lidderdale was so lax as to permit his nephew to frequent the services of the Reverend Stephen Ogilvie at Meade Cantorum, where every excess such as incense, lighted candles, mariolatry and creeping to the cross is openly practised. ...

— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie

... "Things got lax. I heard her say one man sold all his slaves. The War broke out. They run away and went back to him. She'd see 'em pass going back home. They been sold and wouldn't stay. Folks got to running off to war. They thought it look like a frolic. I heard some of them say ...

— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration

... heart. With no resources other than heavily mortgaged real property, she found herself forced to do something for a living. In the course of events we see Mrs. Morrell keeping a flashy boarding-house, hanging precariously on the outer fringe of the lax society of the times, frowned upon by the respectable, but more or less sought by the fast men and young girls only too numerous among the idle of ...

— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White

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