Etymology: Probably two distinct formations. The Old English los (? neuter), found only in the phrase tó lose (weorðan , gedón ), corresponds to Old Norse los neuter, ‘breaking up of the ranks of an army’ (Vigfusson) < Old Germanic *loso-m (a parallel formation with Old English lor lore n.² < Old Germanic *lozo-m ), < *lus- , weak grade of the root *leus- , *laus- : see leese v.¹, lease adj., loose adj. (The etymological sense may be rendered by ‘dissolution’; compare the Old Norse use.) As this word occurs in Old English and early Middle English only in the dative (which if it had survived would have normally become lōse with voiced s ), it cannot, unless the uninflected cases were preserved unrecorded, account for the modern form. The word in its later use as a noun of action to leese , lose verbs, appears first in the middle of the 14th cent., and may have been a back-formation from the past participle lost ; compare lost n., which is of contemporary date.

Etymology: < Middle Dutch los = Old English lox, Old High German, Middle High German luhs (modern German luchs); akin to Swedish lo of the same meaning. Caxton's lossem represents the unexplained variant lossen of the Dutch original.

Etymology: < Dutch lossen (whence German löschen , Danish losse , Swedish lossa ), < los adjective, loose ( < Old Germanic *lusso- ), cognate with loos ( < Old Germanic *lauso- : see loose adj.).