loss

See also: los, löss, and løss

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English los, from Old English los (“damage, destruction, loss”), from Proto-Germanic *lusą (“dissolution, break-up, loss”), from Proto-Indo-European *lews- (“to cut, sunder, separate, loose, lose”). Cognate with Icelandic los (“dissolution, looseness, break-up”), Old English lor, forlor (“loss, ruin”), Middle High German verlor (“loss, ruin”). More at lose.

Pronunciation

Noun

loss (countable and uncountable, plural losses)

  1. an instance of losing, such as a defeat
    The match ended in their first loss of the season.
  2. The result of an alteration in a function or characteristic of the body, or of its previous integrity.
    Loss of an arm ; loss of weight ; loss of cognitive functions ; loss of appetite.
  3. the hurtful condition of having lost something or someone, particularly in death.
    We mourn his loss.
  4. (in the plural) casualties, especially physically eliminated victims of violent conflict
    The battle was won, but losses were great.
  5. (financial) the sum an entity loses on balance
    The sum of expenditures and taxes minus total income is a loss, when this difference is positive.
  6. destruction, ruin
    It was a terrible crash: both cars were total losses
  7. (engineering) electricity of kinetic power expended without doing useful work
    The inefficiency of many old-fashioned power plants exceeds 60% loss before the subsequent losses during transport over the grid
Usage notes
  • We often use make or take a loss. See Appendix:Collocations of do, have, make, and take
Antonyms
Derived terms
Translations
The result of an alteration in a function or characteristic of the body
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Etymology 2

Eye dialect spelling of lost, representing African American Vernacular English.

Verb

loss

  1. (colloquial) Alternative spelling of lost

Anagrams

Estonian

Etymology

Borrowed from German Schloss.

Noun

loss (genitive lossi, partitive lossi)

  1. castle

Declension

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Swedish

Etymology

Like Danish los and Norwegian loss, from Low German or Dutch los, from Middle Low German respectively Middle Dutch los, sidoform of Low German lōs respectively Dutch loos, cognate with Swedish lös.

Adjective

loss

  1. (indeclinable, predicatively, adverbially) loose, untied, off
    den kom loss
    it came off
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