Clipping of English Lalung with x as a placeholder.

lax

1. (international standards) ISO 639-3 language code for Tiwa.

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Tiwa terms

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /læks/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æks
• Homophones: lacs, lacks, lakhs (one pronunciation)

• lacks (Killian)

From Middle English lax, from Old English leax (“salmon”), from Proto-West Germanic *lahs (“salmon”), from Proto-Germanic *lahsaz (“salmon”), from Proto-Indo-European *laḱs- (“salmon, trout”). Cognate with Middle Dutch lacks, lachs, lasche (“salmon”), Middle Low German las (“salmon”), German Lachs (“salmon”), Norwegian laks (“salmon”), Danish laks (“salmon”), Swedish lax (“salmon”), Icelandic lax (“salmon”), Lithuanian lašišà (“salmon”), Latvian lasis, Russian лосо́сь (losósʹ, “salmon”), Albanian leshterik (“eel-grass”). Doublet of lox.

lax (plural laxes)

1. (now chiefly UK dialectal, Scotland) A salmon.

• laxfisher

• gravlax
• lox

Borrowed from Latin laxus (“wide, roomy, loose”).

lax (comparative laxer, superlative laxest)

1. Lenient and allowing for deviation; not strict.

   Synonyms: permissive, lenient, relaxed; see also Thesaurus:lenient

   Antonym: strict

   The rules are fairly lax, but you have to know which ones you can bend.

   • 1886, John Addington Symonds, Philip Sidney:

     Society at that epoch was lenient, if not lax, in matters of the passions.

2. Loose; not tight or taut.

   Synonyms: loose, slack

   Antonyms: taut, tight

   The rope fell lax.

   • 1701, John Ray, The Wisdom of God Manifested in the Works of the Creation, […], 3rd edition, London: […] Sam[uel] Smith, and Benj[amin] Walford, […], →OCLC, part II, page 355:

     The Fleſh of this ſort of [cartilaginous] Fiſh being lax and ſpungy, and nothing ſo firm, ſolid and weighty as that of the bony Fiſhes, and there being a good quantity of Air contained in the Cavity of their Abdomen, they cannot ſink in the Water without letting in ſome of it by theſe Holes (the Orifices whereof are opened and ſhut at pleaſure by the help of Muſcles provided for that purpoſe) into the hollow of their Bellies, whereby they preponderate the Water and deſcend; […]

   • 1979, “Genetical Studies on Dense and Lax Panicles In Rice”, in Japan. J. Breed., volume 29, number 2, page 151:

     Sreedharan and Mirsa (1973) reported that two lax panicle mutants, designated as nude panicle mutation, were obtained from the M₂ of two rice cultivars.

3. Lacking care; neglectful, negligent.

   Synonyms: blameworthy, lash, negligent, remiss, reprehensible

   • 1956 September, “Notes and News: The Barby Sidings Accident Report”, in Railway Magazine, page 638:

     The guard was paying no attention whatever to the running of his train, in total disregard of rules, and, as the recently-published report of a Ministry of Transport Inspecting Officer of Railways shows, there were other disquieting features in the case, such as ignorance on the part of responsible men of rules and appendix instructions and a lax attitude to regulations of which they professed to be aware, combined with failure to look at staff notice boards.

   • 2011 October 1, Phil Dawkes, “Sunderland 2 – 2 West Brom”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Prior to this match, Albion had only scored three league goals all season, but Wes Brown's lax marking allowed Morrison to head in their fourth from a Chris Brunt free-kick and then, a minute later, the initial squandering of possession and Michael Turner's lack of pace let Long run through to slot in another.

4. (mathematics) Describing an associative monoidal functor.
5. (archaic) Having a looseness of the bowels; diarrheal.
6. (linguistics) (of a vowel) Produced with relatively little constriction of the vocal tract.

   Antonym: tense

By replacement of the syllable crosse with the cross-shaped letter x.

lax (uncountable)

1. (slang) lacrosse.
   • 2010, Kate Kingsley, Pretty on the Outside, page 79:

     “I'm not playing lax this term,” Mimah said.

• lax bro

lax (plural laxes)

1. (informal) Clipping of laxative.

• ex-lax fish

• Axl

lax

1. Verbal stem occurring in the following root, aspect, and mode combinations:

Aspect	Imperfective	Perfective	Future	Optative
Transitional				laa (many)

Borrowed from Classical Persian لق.

lax (comparative daha lax, superlative ən lax)

1. shaky, unsteady, rickety, wobbly
2. loose, spacious, loose-fitting
3. rotten (of eggs)

   lax yumurta ― rotten egg

4. (Baku, Salyan) untruthful
5. (Gadabay, Nakhchivan, Ordubad) meaningless

• laxlamaq
• laxlatmaq

• “lax” in Obastan.com.

Learned borrowing from Latin laxus.

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic, Valencia) [ˈlaks]

• Audio (Barcelona):

  (file)

lax (feminine laxa, masculine plural laxos, feminine plural laxes)

1. loose, lax, slack

   Synonym: fluix

   Antonym: tens

• laxar
• relax

• “lax”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007

lax

1. The edible wild purslane plant.

Borrowed from Latin laxus.

• IPA^(key): /laks/

• Audio (Germany (Berlin)):

  (file)

• Homophones: Lachs, Lacks

lax (strong nominative masculine singular laxer, comparative laxer, superlative am laxesten)

1. lax
2. (morale or ethics) easy, loose

• “lax” in Duden online
• “lax” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

• IPA^(key): [la˥˥]

lax

1. to eat

From Old Norse lax, from Proto-Germanic *lahsaz.

• IPA^(key): [laxs], [laks]

lax m (genitive singular lax, nominative plural laxar)

1. salmon

• laxbleikur:
• laxbleikur litur m
• stinglax m

From Proto-Italic *laks, from the same source as laciō (“entice”).^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [ˈɫaks]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [ˈlaks]

lax f (genitive lacis); third declension (hapax legomenon)

1. deception, fraud

Third-declension noun.

• fraus

• “lax”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “lax”, in Gaffiot, Félix (1934), Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

• alx

From Proto-Athabaskan *leˑx̣. Cognate with Ahtna laex.

lax

1. a singular fish swims
2. an animal swims underwater

• Kari, James et al. (2024), Kari, James, editor, Lower Tanana Dene Dictionary, Fairbanks, Alaska: Alaska Native Language Center, →ISBN, pages 272-273

See the etymology of the various root forms.

lax

1. Verbal stem occurring in the following root, aspect, and mode combinations:

Aspect	Imperfective	Perfective	Future	Optative
Transitional	la (be) lok (happen)		la (be) lok (happen)	la (be)
Reversitative	la (be) lo (classify plural)		la (be) lo (classify plural)	la (be) lo (classify plural)
Reversitative (Toklat-Bearpaw)	dhon (tan)		dhon (tan)	dhon (tan)
Persistive	lo (classify plural)	lo (classify plural)	lo (classify plural)	lo (classify plural)

• lex

From Old English leax, from Proto-West Germanic *lahs, from Proto-Germanic *lahsaz.

• IPA^(key): /laks/, /lɛks/

lax (plural lax or laxes)

1. salmon

• English: lax
• Scots: lax

• “lax, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 23 June 2018.

From Proto-Germanic *lahsaz. Cognate with Old English leax, German Lachs, English lox, Old High German lahs, Yiddish לאַקס (laks).

lax m (genitive lax, plural laxar)

1. (zoology) salmon

• Laxárdalr

• Zoëga, Geir T. (1910), “lax”, in A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic, Oxford: Clarendon Press; also available at the Internet Archive

From Old Norse lax, from Proto-Germanic *lahsaz.

lax m

1. (zoology) salmon

• Swedish: lax

Borrowed from Latin laxus.

lax m or n (feminine singular laxă, masculine plural lacși, feminine/neuter plural laxe)

1. lax

Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:

lax

Wikipedia ^sv

From Old Norse lax, from Proto-Germanic *lahsaz.

The 1000 SEK sense probably refers to the salmon color of old 1000 SEK banknotes. Compare the similarly themed older slang skäring, from skär (“pink”); räka (“prawn”); tegel (“brick”); and röding (“char”), from röd (“red”); all referring to the red-pinkish color of old 1000 SEK banknotes. Color and animal-related nicknames for banknotes used to be quite common. Other examples include grönsiska (“siskin; 6 riksdaler 32 skillingar”), kanariefågel (“canary bird; 32 skillingar”), and fågel blå (“blue bird; 500 riksdaler”).

Another possibility is a Romani origin, then derived from Hindi लाख (lākh, “100,000”), from Sanskrit लक्ष (lakṣa), but such a Romani word has not been attested. Cf. lakan with the same meaning.

• IPA^(key): /laks/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aks
• Homophone: lacks

lax c

1. salmon (fish)

   laxar som simmar uppströms

   salmon swimming upstream

   odla lax

   farm salmon

2. salmon (meat)

   Citronpeppar är gott till lax

   Lemon pepper is good on salmon

3. (slang) A thousand of some unit of currency, typically SEK.

   Synonyms: lakan, långschal, skäring, papp, lök

• laxodling (“salmon farming; salmon farm”)
• laxrosa
• lök på laxen

• “lax”, in Svensk ordbok [Dictionary of Swedish] (in Swedish)
• “lax”, in Svenska Akademiens ordlista [Wordlist of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)
• “lax”, in Svenska Akademiens ordbok [Dictionary of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)
• Monica Golabiewski Lannby (3 December 2009), “Sedlarna som satte färg på språket”, in Språktidningen‎^[2], retrieved 26 November 2021
• Monica Golabiewski Lannby (2009), “’LAXAR’ – de skära tusenlapparna”, in Svensk numismatisk tidskrift‎^[3], number 8, Svenska numismatiska föreningen
• Gerd Carling (2005), “lax”, in Romani i svenskan: Storstadsslang och standardspråk, Stockholm: Carlsson, →ISBN, page 89