lose
lost; losing; loses
The verb to lose means something has gone missing. Maybe it's your car keys. Maybe it's points in a game. Maybe it's the love of your life. Sorry about that.
You can physically lose something by misplacing it, or you can lose your pride in a competition. You can lose a game, you can lose your library book, you can lose money, you can lose your business, you can lose sight of your child, you can even lose your mind — basically, you can lose just about anything. Losing something is usually not a good thing, unless it's that annoying boyfriend or weight.
Definitions of lose
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fail to keep or to maintain; cease to have, either physically or in an abstract sense
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suffer the loss of a person through death or removal“She lost her husband in the war”“The couple that wanted to adopt the child lost her when the biological parents claimed her”
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type of:
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suffer
experience (emotional) pain
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suffer
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place (something) where one cannot find it again
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miss from one's possessions; lose sight of“I've lost my glasses again!”
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allow to go out of sight“The detective lost the man he was shadowing after he had to stop at a red light”
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fail to perceive or to catch with the senses or the mind
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fail to win“We lost the battle but we won the war”
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Antonyms:
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win
be the winner in a contest or competition; be victorious
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types:
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go down
be defeated
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drop
lose (a game)
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remain down, take the count
be counted out; remain down while the referee counts to ten
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drop one's serve
lose a game in which one is serving
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win
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fail to get or obtain
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fail to make money in a business; make a loss or fail to profit“I lost thousands of dollars on that bad investment!”
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synonyms:
turn a loss
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Antonyms:
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profit, turn a profit
make a profit; gain money or materially
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break even
make neither profit nor loss
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profit, turn a profit
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retreat
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synonyms:
drop off, fall back, fall behind, recede
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Antonyms:
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advance, gain, gain ground, get ahead, make headway, pull ahead, win
obtain advantages, such as points, etc.
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type of:
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regress, retrograde, retrogress
get worse or fall back to a previous condition
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advance, gain, gain ground, get ahead, make headway, pull ahead, win
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be set at a disadvantage
DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘lose'.
Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors.
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Commonly confused words
lose / loose
Lose sounds like snooze. If you lose something, you don’t have it anymore. Add an “o” and loose rhymes with goose and describes something that’s not attached.
Word Family
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