Word.ws English Dictionary

play fast and loose

play fast and loose verb: to ignore proper behavior or social conventions, especially when it suits one's purpose.

Verb

play fast and loose (third-person singular simple present plays fast and loose, present participle playing fast and loose, simple past and past participle played fast and loose)

  1. (idiomatic) To ignore proper behavior or social conventions, especially when it suits one's purpose.
    • I cannot say that there were any outright lies in the editorial, but it does play fast and loose with the truth.
    • Come, let us have the Arke (saith he) And then, Goe to, it skills not greatly, carry it backe againe: which, what was it, but, to play fast and loose with Religion?1589, Lancelot Andrewes, 'A Sermon Preached before Queene Elizabeth, at Greenwich, on Wednesday 11 March, 1589', in XCVI Sermons, ed. William Laud and John Buckeridge, London: … Richard Badger...
  2. (idiomatic) To be recklessly inaccurate, inappropriate, or otherwise ignoring guidelines and conventions.
  3. (idiomatic) To act in a tricky, inconstant way, saying one thing and doing another.

Examples of play fast and loose in a sentence

  • And shall these hands, so lately purg’d of blood, / So newly join’d in love, so strong in both, / Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet? / Play fast and loose with faith?c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, &...
  • For his worshippers have far too great a stake in his life to allow him to play fast and loose with it.a. 1915, Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough:
  • Congress loves to play fast and loose with numbers, particularly when one side or the other is using them to justify a bill.2001 August 13, Douglas Waller., “Some Shaky Figures on ANWR Drilling”, in Time:

Forms of play fast and loose

third-person singular presentplays fast and loose
present participleplaying fast and loose
past participleplayed fast and loose
pastplayed fast and loose

Origin of play fast and loose

From the con game fast and loose.

Questions about play fast and loose

What does play fast and loose mean?
Play fast and loose means to ignore proper behavior or social conventions, especially when it suits one's purpose.
How do you use play fast and loose in a sentence?
And shall these hands, so lately purg’d of blood, / So newly join’d in love, so strong in both, / Unyoke this seizure and this kind regreet? / Play fast and loose with faith?
What part of speech is play fast and loose?
Play fast and loose is a verb.
What is the past tense of play fast and loose?
The past tense of play fast and loose is played fast and loose.

Words near play fast and loose in the dictionary

  1. play doggo
  2. play down
  3. play dumb
  4. play equipment
  5. play fair
  6. play fast and loose
  7. play favorites
  8. play fight
  9. play fights
  10. play fine
  11. play first fiddle

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play fast and loose (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-play fast and loose.ogg.

Cite this entry: “play fast and loose.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play_fast_and_loose. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.