Word.ws English Dictionary

loose cannon

loose cannon noun: a cannon that breaks loose from its moorings on a ship during battle or storm, with the potential to cause serious damage to the ship and her crew.

Noun

loose cannon (plural loose cannons)

  1. A cannon that breaks loose from its moorings on a ship during battle or storm, with the potential to cause serious damage to the ship and her crew.
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) An uncontrolled or unpredictable person, especially considered liable to cause unintentional or indiscriminate damage.
    • Jack is considered a loose cannon due to his volatile personality and his track record of being unable to maintain his composure.
    • Sooner or later this party gets busted and all your friends stumble back home
      But you're the loose cannon who could never be trusted so you'll hide from the cops all alone.2013, “Post Party Depression”, in Rogue Taxidermy, performed by Days N' Daze

Verb

loose cannon (third-person singular simple present loose cannons, present participle loose cannoning, simple past and past participle loose cannoned)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To behave in a way such as to cause unintentional or indiscriminate damage.
    • Gerald's loose cannoning triggered a volley of faithfully quoted media coverage which blasted a hole in his company's profits […]2006, Gerry McCusker, Public Relations Disasters: Talespin--Inside Stories and Lessons Learnt, page 179

loose cannon meaning in Urdu

loose cannon in Urdu

بےلگام

Forms of loose cannon

Noun
pluralloose cannons
Verb
third-person singular presentloose cannons
present participleloose cannoning
past participleloose cannoned
pastloose cannoned

Questions about loose cannon

What does loose cannon mean?
Loose cannon means a cannon that breaks loose from its moorings on a ship during battle or storm, with the potential to cause serious damage to the ship and her crew.
What is loose cannon in Urdu?
Loose cannon in Urdu is بےلگام. See Loose cannon meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is loose cannon?
Loose cannon can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of loose cannon?
The plural of loose cannon is loose cannons.

Words near loose cannon in the dictionary

  1. loose anagen hair syndrome
  2. loose anagen syndrome
  3. loose as a goose
  4. loose box
  5. loose boxes
  6. loose cannon
  7. loose cannoned
  8. loose cannoning
  9. loose cannons
  10. loose change
  11. loose connection

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: loose cannon (page history and authors); loose cannon (Urdu Wiktionary) (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: En-au-loose cannon.ogg.

Cite this entry: “loose cannon.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/loose_cannon. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.