set loose

Verb

set loose (third-person singular simple present sets loose, present participle setting loose, simple past and past participle set loose)

1. (transitive) To set free, let go, release, liberate, unleash.
   • The new product was the Game Boy — a hand-held, battery-powered plastic slab that promised to set gamers loose, after all those decades of sweaty bondage, from the tyranny of rec rooms and pizza parlors and arcades.2012 April 4, Sam Anderson, “Just One More Game ...”, in The New York Times Magazine
   • He laid the foundation stone on August 1 1847, and then set around 2,000 workmen loose on the undertaking. The station opened exactly one year later on August 1 1848.2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Chester (1848)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 58

   Synonyms:

   let loose, turn loose