loose endn.
/ˌluːs ˈɛnd/, U.S. /ˌlus ˈɛnd/ 1. An extremity of a string or the like left hanging loose; figurative of something left disconnected, undecided or unguarded. Chiefly plural.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > completing > non-completion > [noun] > something left unfinished
loose end1550
1550 J. Heywood Dialogue Prouerbes Eng. Tongue (new ed.) i. xi. sig. Cv Some loose or od ende will come man.
1577 W. Harrison Descr. Eng. (1877) ii. v. i. 110 The cleargie men..are beloued generallie..except peraduenture of some hungrie wombes, that couet to plucke & snatch at the loose ends of their best commodities; with whom it is..a common guise, when a man is to be preferred to an ecclesiasticall liuing, what part thereof he will first forgo and part with to their vse.
1868 A. Bain Mental & Moral Sci. 6 A completed connexion between the extremities of the body and the cells of the grey matter, or else between one cell and another of the central lump; there are no loose ends.
1897 Boston (Mass.) Jrnl. 1 Jan. 4/5 No loose ends of controversy along these lines will be left to be taken up by the new Administration.
2. at (after, on) a loose end: not regularly occupied, having no settled employment; not knowing what to be at. Also (to leave a matter) at a loose end: unsettled. colloquial, originally dialect (cf. loose hand n. at loose adj., n.2, and adv. Compounds 2).
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > lack of work > [phrase] > not in regular employment
at the loose hand1742
at (after, on) a loose end1851
the world > action or operation > completing > non-completion > not completed [phrase] > in uncompleted state
in sudsa1592
at (after, on) a loose end1851
1851 H. Mayhew London Labour II. 47/1 One informant told me that the bird-catchers,..when young,..were those who ‘liked to be after a loose end’, first catching their birds, as a sort of sporting business, and then sometimes selling them in the streets.
1856 P. Thompson Hist. & Antiq. Boston, Lincoln 714 ‘He's on a loose end’, without employment.
1860 ‘G. Eliot’ Mill on Floss III. vi. iv. 54 When I've left off carrying my pack, an' am at a loose end.
1864 Fraser's Mag. LXIX. 412/1 But to stop short of that is to leave the whole matter at a loose end.
1870 E. Peacock Ralf Skirlaugh III. 228 On the Saturday evening he, like Bob, was at the ‘lowse end’, but he had full employment.
1889 W. H. Mallock Enchanted Island 262 Excepting myself he was the only stranger in Cyprus who was thus at a loose end, as it were, and not on some professional duty.
3. Mining. (See quots.)
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1865 J. Bower Slate Quarries 17 A ‘loose end’, as quarry~men call it, should always be selected for carrying on operations on the top rock.
1881 Trans. Amer. Inst. Mining Engineers 1880–1 9 153 Loose~end, a gangway in long-wall working, driven so that one side is solid ground while the other opens upon old workings.
1883 W. S. Gresley Gloss. Terms Coal Mining Loose End, the limit of a stall next to the goaf, or where the adjoining stall is in advance.
4. A tie with loose ends.
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1906 Daily Chron. 28 May 11/7 Ties.—Good hands required, indoors, at once, for slipping Oxfords, Derbys and loose-ends.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1903; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1550