lose

lose

W1S1 [lu:z] v past tense and past participle lost [lɔst US lo:st]

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1¦(stop having attitude/quality etc)¦

2¦(not win)¦

3¦(cannot find something)¦

4¦(stop having something)¦

5¦(death)¦

6¦(money)¦

7 have nothing to lose

8¦(time)¦

9 lose your way/bearings

10 lose touch (with somebody/something)

11 lose your temper/cool/rag

12 lose your head

13 lose your mind

14 lose it

15 lose yourself in something

16¦(escape)¦

17¦(confuse somebody)¦

18¦(remove something)¦

19 lose something in the translation/telling

Phrasal verbs

　lose out

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[: Old English; Origin: losian 'to destroy or be destroyed, to lose']

1.) ¦(STOP HAVING ATTITUDE/QUALITY ETC)¦ [T]

to stop having a particular attitude, quality, ability etc, or to gradually have less of it

→↑loss

▪ I've lost my appetite.

lose confidence/interest/hope etc

▪ The business community has lost confidence in the government.

▪ Carol lost interest in ballet in her teens.

▪ Try not to lose heart (=become sad and hopeless) - there are plenty of other jobs.

lose face

(=stop having as much respect from other people)

▪ A settlement was reached in which neither side lost face.

lose weight/height/speed etc

▪ You're looking slim. Have you lost weight?

▪ The plane emptied its fuel tanks as it started losing altitude.

lose your sight/hearing/voice/balance etc

▪ Mr Eyer may lose the sight in one eye.

▪ The tour was postponed when the lead singer lost his voice.

▪ Julian lost his balance and fell.

lose your touch

(=become less skilled at doing something you used to do well)

▪ This latest movie proves Altman is by no means losing his touch.

▪ By the time the ambulance arrived, Douglas had lost consciousness .

lose all sense of time/direction/proportion etc

▪ When he was writing, he lost all sense of time.

lose sight of sth

(=forget an important fact about a situation)

▪ We must never lose sight of the fact that man must work in harmony with nature.

2.) ¦(NOT WIN)¦ [I and T]

to not win a game, argument, election, war etc

≠ ↑win

→↑defeat

▪ They played so badly they deserved to lose.

▪ Klinger lost his seat in the election.

▪ Arkansas just lost three games in a row.

▪ He just can't bear to lose an argument.

lose to

▪ The Beavers have dropped only one game since losing to Oregon in January.

lose (sth) by 1 goal/10 votes/20 points etc

▪ The government lost by one vote.

▪ The Communist candidate lost by a whisker (=a very small amount) .

▪ Freddie died in 1982 after losing his battle against AIDS.

lose sb sth

▪ It was a rash decision, and it lost him the race (=caused him to lose the race) .

3.) ¦(CANNOT FIND SOMETHING)¦ [T]

to become unable to find someone or something

▪ I've lost the tickets for tonight's show.

▪ I followed her on foot, but lost her in the crowd.

▪ It was thought the manuscript had been lost forever .

be/get lost in the post

BrE be/get lost in the mail AmE

▪ The parcel must have got lost in the post .

lose track of sth/sb

(=stop knowing where someone or something is)

▪ He lost track of her after her family moved away.

lose sight of sth/sb

(=stop being able to see someone or something)

▪ Don't try to walk in a heavy snowstorm as you may lose sight of your vehicle.

→↑lost property

4.) ¦(STOP HAVING SOMETHING)¦ [T]

if you lose something that is important or necessary, you then no longer have it, especially because it has been taken from you or destroyed

→↑loss

▪ David's very upset about losing his job .

▪ Hundreds of people lost their homes in the floods.

▪ My family lost everything in the war.

▪ He was over the limit and will lose his licence .

▪ 90 naval aircraft were lost and 31 damaged.

lose a chance/opportunity

▪ If you hesitate, you may lose the opportunity to compete altogether.

lose sth to sb/sth

▪ We were losing customers to cheaper rivals.

▪ She was about to lose her husband to a younger woman.

▪ California has lost 90% of its wetlands to development.

lose an arm/leg/eye etc

▪ He lost his leg in a motorcycle accident.

▪ He's lost a lot of blood but his life is not in danger.

lose sb sth

▪ the mistakes which lost him his kingdom (=caused him to lose his kingdom)

5.) ¦(DEATH)¦ [T]

a) lose your life

to die

▪ a memorial to honor those who lost their lives in the war

b) if you lose a relative or friend, they die - use this when you want to avoid saying the word 'die'

→↑loss

▪ One woman in Brooklyn lost a husband and two sons in the gang wars.

▪ Sadly, Anna lost the baby (=her baby died before it was born) .

lose sb to cancer/AIDS etc

▪ He lost his father to cancer (=his father died of cancer) last year.

▪ Peter was lost at sea when his ship sank.

6.) ¦(MONEY)¦ [I and T]

if you lose money, you then have less money than you had before

→↑loss lose on

▪ The company is in debt after losing an estimated $30 million on its dotcom enterprise.

▪ Creditors and investors stand to lose (=risk losing) vast sums after the company's collapse.

▪ A lot of people lost their shirts (=lost a lot of money) on Ferraris in the Eighties.

▪ It's a great deal - we can't lose!

lose sb sth

▪ The stock market crash lost the banks £70 million (=caused them to lose £70 million) .

7.) have nothing to lose

spoken if you have nothing to lose, it is worth taking a risk because you cannot make your situation any worse

▪ You might as well apply for the job - you've got nothing to lose.

have nothing to lose but your pride/reputation etc

▪ The working class has nothing to lose but its chains. (=disadvantages, restrictions etc) .

have a lot/too much to lose

(=used to say that you could make your situation much worse)

▪ These youngsters know they have too much to lose by protesting against the system.

8.) ¦(TIME)¦ [T]

a) if you lose time, you do not make progress as quickly as you want to or should

lose time/2 days/3 hours etc

▪ Vital minutes were lost because the ambulance took half an hour to arrive.

▪ In 1978, 29 million days were lost in industrial action.

▪ Come on, there's no time to lose (=do not waste time) .

lose no time in doing sth

(=do something immediately)

▪ Murdock lost no time in taking out a patent for his invention.

b) if a watch, clock etc loses time, it runs too slowly and shows an earlier time than it should

≠ ↑gain

9.) lose your way/bearings

a) to stop knowing where you are or which direction you should go in

▪ I lost my way in the network of tiny alleys.

b) to become uncertain about your beliefs or what you should do

▪ The company seems to have lost its way of late.

10.) lose touch (with sb/sth)

a) if two people lose touch, they gradually stop communicating, for example by no longer phoning or writing to each other

▪ I've lost touch with all my old school friends.

▪ They lost touch when Di got married and moved away.

b) if you lose touch with a situation or group, you are then no longer involved in it and so do not know about it or understand it

▪ They claim the prime minister has lost touch with the party.

▪ It sometimes appears that the planners have lost touch with reality.

11.) lose your temper/cool/rag

to become angry

lose your temper/cool/rag with

▪ Diana was determined not to lose her temper with him.

12.) lose your head

to become unable to behave calmly or sensibly

▪ You've all heard that Nadal lost his head over a girl?

13.) lose your mind

to become crazy

= ↑go crazy, go mad ↑go mad

▪ Nicholas looked at her as if she'd lost her mind.

14.) lose itspoken informal

a) to become very angry and upset

▪ She completely lost it with one of the kids in class.

b) also lose the plot

to become crazy or confused

▪ I could see people thinking I'd totally lost the plot.

15.) lose yourself in sth

to be paying so much attention to something that you do not notice anything else

▪ She listened intently to the music, losing herself in its beauty.

16.) ¦(ESCAPE)¦ [T]

if you lose someone who is chasing you, you manage to escape from them

▪ There's a better chance of losing him if we take the back route.

17.) ¦(CONFUSE SOMEBODY)¦ [T]

spoken informal to confuse someone when you are trying to explain something to them

▪ Explain it again - you've lost me already.

18.) ¦(REMOVE SOMETHING)¦ [T]

to remove a part or feature of something that is not necessary or wanted

▪ You could lose the last paragraph to make it fit on one page.

19.) lose sth in the translation/telling

to be less good than the original form

▪ The joke loses something in the translation.

→↑lost²

→lose count at ↑count² (3)

→lose sleep over sth at ↑sleep² (4)

lose out phr v

to not get something good, valuable etc because someone else gets it instead

▪ The deal will ensure that shareholders do not lose out financially.

lose out to

▪ He lost out to Roy Scheider for the lead role.

lose out on

▪ Workers who don't take up training may lose out on promotion.