Word.ws English Dictionary

loose cannoning

loose cannoning is the present participle and gerund of loose cannon.

Meaning of loose cannon

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

See all 3 meanings of loose cannon

Questions about loose cannoning

What is loose cannoning the present participle and gerund of?
Loose cannoning is the present participle and gerund of loose cannon.

Words near loose cannoning in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: loose cannoning (page history and authors); loose cannon (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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Cite this entry: “loose cannoning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/loose_cannoning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.