loophole
Syllables: loop·hole/ˈluːphəʊl/US/ˈluphoʊl/
loophole noun: a slit in a castle wall; today, any similar window for shooting a ranged weapon or letting in light.
Noun
loophole (plural loopholes)
- A slit in a castle wall; today, any similar window for shooting a ranged weapon or letting in light.
- […] and having a fair loophole, as it were, from a broken hole in the tree, he took a sure aim, without being seen, waiting till they were within about thirty yards of the tree, so that he could not miss.1719 May 6 (Gregorian calendar), [Daniel Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, […], London: […] W[illiam] Taylor […], →OCLC
- There was a loophole in this wall, to let the light in, just at the height of a person's head, who was sitting near the chimney.1809, Maria Edgeworth, The Absentee
- Synonyms:
- arrowslit, arrow slit, arrow-hole, balistraria, barbican
- A method of escape, especially an ambiguity or exception in a rule or law that can be exploited in order to avoid its effect.
- Coupling the poor girl's intelligence with my previous knowledge, and the result of our good friend's inquiries on the spot, I left him no loophole of escape, and laid bare the whole villany which by these lights became plain as day.1838, Charles Dickens, chapter 49, in Oliver Twist, page 236
- You have a contract that says you will work until Island Towers is finalized, which I interpret as completion of construction, or I can stop you working elsewhere. And there's no loopholes, because you drafted it and you're the best.2002, Marc Lawrence, Two Weeks Notice (motion picture)
Verb
loophole (third-person singular simple present loopholes, present participle loopholing, simple past and past participle loopholed)
- To prepare a building for defense by preparing slits or holes through which to fire on attackers
- The lower windows were barricaded, and the whole building loopholed for musketry fire.1896, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard
- The doors were barricaded, the shutters closed upon the windows and loopholed, and provisions were brought in from the outhouses.1907, A. E. W. Mason, The Broken Road
- To exploit (a law, etc.) by means of loopholes.
- Abroad they had developed loopholing the law into an art; in Israel they jettisoned loopholing for ignoring the law wherever possible. Obeying laws was for naive fools.1988, Macabee Dean, The Ashmadai Solution: A Surrealistic Extrapolation of a Gentle Genocide
- De-moralizing the subject can be, quite simply, demoralizing, as stirring statements of ideals turn into persnickety rules with exceptions crying out to be loopholed.2005, Deborah Rhode, David Luban, Legal Ethics Stories
loophole meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
loophole in Tamil
- தப்பிப்புவழி, சட்ட ஓட்டை, இடுக்குவழி, ஓட்டை
loophole in Urdu
- دراز
loophole in Bengali
- ফাঁকফোকর
loophole in Malayalam
- loophole
- പഴുത് paḻutŭ
- loophole; fault; defect
- പാഴ് pāḻŭ
More languagesFewer languages
- loophole in Kannada
- ಪಾರುಗಂಡಿ, ತಪ್ಪಿಸುವ ದಾರಿ, ಕಿಂಡಿ, ತೂತು
- loophole in Sanskrit
- वातायन vātāyana
- loophole in Thai
- ช่องโหว่ chɔ̂ng-wòo
Examples of loophole in a sentence
- The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of the Ministry of Truth, with the light no longer shining on them, looked grim as the loopholes of a fortress.1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, page 25:
- Behind the scenes, the system had quietly punched a neat loophole into the ballyhooed reform.2008 September 9, Jim Hightower, “Breaking the Lobbyists' Stranglehold on Our Democracy”, in Creators, archived from the original on 26 Feb...
- They would rather ask more from the vast majority of Americans and put our recovery at risk than close even a single tax loophole that benefits the wealthy.2013 February 9, Barack Obama, The Support They Need:
Synonyms of loophole
Forms of loophole
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | loopholes |
| alternative form | loop hole |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | loopholes |
| present participle | loopholing |
| past participle | loopholed |
| past | loopholed |
Origin of loophole
From Middle English loupe (“opening in a wall”) + hole, from a Germanic source. By surface analysis, loop + hole. Compare Medieval Latin loupa, lobia and Middle Dutch lupen (“to watch”).
Words formed from loophole
Questions about loophole
- What does loophole mean?
- Loophole means a slit in a castle wall; today, any similar window for shooting a ranged weapon or letting in light.
- What is loophole in Tamil?
- Loophole in Tamil is தப்பிப்புவழி, சட்ட ஓட்டை, இடுக்குவழி. See Loophole meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use loophole in a sentence?
- The sun had shifted round, and the myriad windows of the Ministry of Truth, with the light no longer shining on them, looked grim as the loopholes of a fortress.
- What part of speech is loophole?
- Loophole can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce loophole?
- Loophole is pronounced /ˈluːphəʊl/ (UK).
- What is the plural of loophole?
- The plural of loophole is loopholes.
Words near loophole in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: loophole (page history and authors); loophole (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); loophole (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); loophole (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); പഴുത് (Malayalam) (page history and authors); loophole (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); वातायन (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-loophole.wav.
Cite this entry: “loophole.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/loophole. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.