to play fast and loose
6
8.0
- idiom
- Informal
:
jugar de manera irresponsable
- Her sons fear their stepfather is playing fast and loose with their mother's money.
A Kim Kardashian podcast that's playing fast and loose with the truth.
- A Kim Kardashian podcast that's playing fast and loose with the truth.
- If I'm playing fast and loose, however, I can't really trust that now, can I?
- So yeah, I was probably playing fast and loose is how I describe it.
Examples
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The Bank of Ireland had been caught playing fast and loose with its customers' money.
Blog text (13) -
It's bringing a level of rigor to the conversation where you've been playing fast and loose with logic.
Blog text (2) -
Josh is, of course, aware that he is playing fast and loose with the numbers here.
Blog text (33) -
He's also been known to play fast and loose with the ladies.
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They want to disbar him for allegedly playing fast and loose with clients' money.
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The NYT is reporting that TEPEC has been playing fast and loose with safety standards since at least the '80s.
Blog text (20) -
Both sides accuse each other of playing fast and loose with the truth.
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You're still the guy cutting corners, playing fast and loose with the law.
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Regulators don't like it when you play fast and loose with guaranteed money.
Synonyms
75
9.9
To waste time or act carelessly
22
5.8
To take a big risk that can cause harm
6
8.4
To act without care for other people or their rights
3
3.5
To act in a careless, playful way instead of doing something important
1
8.1
To do something risky that almost breaks rules or laws
To behave rudely or foolishly in a way that annoys others
To act in a risky way without thinking about the bad results
Antonyms
How Reckless
12
7.9
- Informal
6
8.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The words 'play' (treat lightly) and 'loose' (unrestrained) give a partial cue that the action is careless or not serious, so a learner might infer some kind of irresponsible behavior. However, 'fast and loose' is a fixed idiomatic unit whose precise sense of reckless or deceitful disregard for rules or trust is not fully predictable from the parts, so the expression is only partially transparent.
Etymology
Play fast and loose comes from old street tricks where a cheat showed a loop of rope or a ring and could make it either fast, meaning held tight, or loose, meaning let go, to fool people. One popular story says this trick showed you could treat something important as safe or not, so today play fast and loose means 'to behave carelessly or to cheat'.