Lax


[laks] /læks/

adjective, laxer, laxest.
1.
not strict or severe; careless or negligent:
lax morals; a lax attitude toward discipline.
2.
loose or slack; not tense, rigid, or firm:
a lax rope; a lax handshake.
3.
not rigidly exact or precise; vague:
lax ideas.
4.
open, loose, or not retentive, as diarrheal bowels.
5.
(of a person) having the bowels unusually loose or open.
6.
open or not compact; having a loosely cohering structure; porous:
lax tissue; lax texture.
7.
Phonetics. (of a vowel) articulated with relatively relaxed tongue muscles.
Compare 1 (def 4).
/læks/
adjective
1.
lacking firmness; not strict
2.
lacking precision or definition
3.
not taut
4.
(phonetics) (of a speech sound) pronounced with little muscular effort and consequently having relatively imprecise accuracy of articulation and little temporal duration. In English the vowel i in bit is lax
5.
(of flower clusters) having loosely arranged parts
adj.

c.1400, “loose” (in reference to bowels), from Latin laxus “wide, loose, open,” figuratively “loose, free, wide,” from PIE root *(s)leg- “to be slack, be languid” (cf. Greek legein “to leave off, stop,” lagos “hare,” literally “with drooping ears,” lagnos “lustful, lascivious,” lagaros “slack, hollow, shrunken;” Latin languere “to be faint, weary,” languidis “faint, weak, dull, sluggish, languid”). Of rules, discipline, etc., attested from mid-15c.
n.

“salmon,” from Old English leax (see lox).

LAnguage eXample.
A toy language used to illustrate compiler design.
[“Compiler Construction”, W.M. Waite et al, Springer 1984].
(1994-12-07)
Los Angeles International Airport

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