lax
lax Lexical Profile
lax Game Scores & Validity
• adjective
Not sufficiently strict, severe, or careful; negligent or permissive in enforcing rules, standards, or discipline.
"The audit revealed that the company had been dangerously lax in enforcing its data privacy protocols."
Relaxed, loose, or not taut (especially of muscles, ligaments, or bodily tissue).
"Years of joint inflammation had left the ligaments surrounding his knee unusually lax."
Produced with relatively little muscular tension in the vocal tract and tongue (of a speech sound, especially a vowel).
"In English phonetics, the short vowel in the word 'bit' is classified as lax, whereas the vowel in 'beat' is tense."
Word Nuance & Usage
Do not confuse 'lax' (meaning careless or not strict) with its near-homophone 'lacks' (the third-person singular form of the verb 'lack', meaning to be without).
• Rhymes for lax
Word Origin & Etymology
Borrowed in the late Middle English period from Latin 'laxus', meaning 'loose, wide, or spacious', which also gave rise to the English words 'relax' and 'lease'.