Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Loose end   /lus ɛnd/   Listen
Loose end

noun
1.
Work that is left incomplete.  Synonym: unfinished business.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Loose end" Quotes from Famous Books



... transport lumber to a desired place than beavers. They realise the value of water transportation and thoroughly appreciate that trees can only be removed downhill. From tame beavers we have learned that they remove smaller limbs by seizing them with their teeth, throwing the loose end over their shoulder, and then dragging them to ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... Margot Vernee, and her confession. It was like the revolving whirl of a pinwheel, this series of events: continuous and mystifying, but without beginning or end. Surely, somewhere in the procession of horrors, there would be a loose end to cling to. Some loose end that would ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various

... turning one half towards the ears, and the other towards the back of the horse; next tie the rope by one end in a hard knot that will not slip—not too tightly—round the horse's neck in the place at which the mane is divided, having the knot on the right side of the neck; then pass the loose end of the rope forwards, along the right side of the neck, into the horse's mouth and back along the left side of the neck to that part of the rope which surrounds the horse's neck, and underneath which it is passed; than take the loose end of the rope in your hand, and you have the persuader ...
— Young's Demonstrative Translation of Scientific Secrets • Daniel Young

... of seamen!" said Karl, in the intervals of disgorging water. "Upon my word, they understood nothing. They'd made the rocket-line fast to the shrouds, and tied the loose end round the captain's waist! And you should just have seen the muddle on board!" He talked loudly, but his glance seemed to ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... Already have we enough of them. Besides, hitherto women have contrived to get on WITHOUT education.' And when next I conceived a scheme for instituting a match factory, it befell that the factory was burnt down during its first year of existence, and I found myself once more at a loose end. Next a certain woman got hold of me, and I flitted about her like a martin around a belfry, and so lost my head as to live life as though I were not on earth at all—for three years I did not know even what I was doing, and only when I recovered ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... the wolves in their own language to come and help him. Then out of the forest came bounding the great mother-wolf with her four children, now grown to be nearly as big as herself. She chased the fleeting horse and snapped at the loose end of the huntsman's cloak, howling with grief and anger. But she could not get the thief, nor get back her adopted son, the little smooth-skinned foundling. So after following them for miles, the five wolves gradually dropped farther and farther behind. And at last, as he stretched ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe

... the loose end of the rope round the forward thwart of the boat, and, swinging himself up the ladder, stood the next moment on the deck. "Anything very dreadful on board?" he inquired sarcastically, as he and his ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... worked in a disconnected fashion, but this trait has been exaggerated in the case of both. Mark Twain has certainly made a stronger impression than many authors whose "sixthly" follows more inevitably. It is true that his romances do not gather up every loose end, that they do not close with a grand climax which settles everything; but they reflect the spirit of the western life, which also had many loose ends and ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck

... loose end, kept the farm in ferment, evading the work Garry had sent him, by a conscientious effort to assist others. He was glad he could paint if the mood seized him. Denied the opportunity he knew he would have fretted. ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... one of our neighbors worked in a cloth manufactory, and every week brought home a sum of money. I was at a loose end, people said, and got nothing. I was also now to go to the manufactory, "not for the sake of the money," my mother said, "but that she might know where I was, and ...
— The True Story of My Life • Hans Christian Andersen

... back to where he remembered the rope-coil lay, dragging the loose end of it back after him, and then lowering it over the ship's side until it touched the water. Then he shifted this rope along the rail until it swung over the last of the line of surf-boats that bobbed and thudded against the side-plates of the gently rolling steamer. About him, all the while, he ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... the reddish roll which he had brought into the room with him, he sent the loose end of it wheeling across the floor, until it lay, fully outspread. In black letters against red, the legend glared and blared ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... suburb movement. One of the first sites chosen was off the Finchley Road. The place was in the building, and one of the streets—Laleham Gardens—had only some half a dozen houses in it, all unoccupied save one. It was a lonely, loose end of the suburb, terminating suddenly in open fields. From the unfinished end of the road the ground sloped down somewhat steeply to a pond, and beyond that began a small wood. The one house occupied had been bought by a young ...
— Malvina of Brittany • Jerome K. Jerome

... running from the wall switch to the welder and substitute two pieces of No. 8 or No. 6 insulated copper wire, after scraping off the insulation for an inch or two at each end. Connect one wire from the switch to the frame of welder; this will leave one loose end. Hold this a foot or so away from the place where the insulation is cut off; then turn on the current and strike the free end of this wire lightly against one of the copper dies, drawing it away quickly. If no sparking ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly

... out of the Army after the Armistice, I found myself, like many hundreds of other ex-officers, completely at a loose end, without a shilling in the world over and above the gratuity of between two and three hundred pounds to which my period of commissioned service ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux



Words linked to "Loose end" :   work



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com