Word.ws English Dictionary

losing it

losing it is the present participle and gerund of lose it.

Meaning of lose it

Verb

lose it (third-person singular simple present loses it, present participle losing it, simple past and past participle lost it)

  1. (informal) To become explosively angry; to lose one's temper.
    • When my dad found out I had failed the exams, he just lost it.
  2. (informal) To feel devastated, or distraught, especially when one's sadness is overwhelming.
    • When she heard the news about her cousin's death, she lost it.
  3. (informal) To begin to laugh uncontrollably.
    • When the teacher's chair broke, the class completely lost it.
  4. (informal) To lose one's mind, go crazy.
  5. (informal) To cease to have a skill or ability, to lose one's touch, to be washed up.
    • When you think about all she's done for the sport, it's kind of sad, but she's completely lost it over the past few years.
  6. (idiomatic) To lose control of a situation.
    • Charlie is seated in a wheelchair, his head face down on the tray, food and liquid strewn all over the floor and nearby counter. He appears to be unconscious. His feet and hands are swollen far beyond normal size. Horrified, I say his name softly. He doesn't stir. […] Later I'm told he'd "lost it"...1988 February 14, Marea Murray, “Friction Between The Factions”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 30, page 6

See all 7 meanings of lose it

Questions about losing it

What is losing it the present participle and gerund of?
Losing it is the present participle and gerund of lose it.

Words near losing it in the dictionary

  1. losing face
  2. losing ground
  3. losing hazard
  4. losing hazards
  5. losing heart
  6. losing it
  7. losing line
  8. losing lines
  9. losing no time
  10. losing one's balance
  11. losing one's battle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: losing it (page history and authors); lose it (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “losing it.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/losing_it. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.