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Use lax in a sentence

Definition of lax:

  • (adjective) pronounced with muscles of the tongue and jaw relatively relaxed (e.g. the vowel sound in `bet')
  • (adjective) not taut or rigid; not stretched or held tight; "a lax rope"
  • (adjective) lacking in strength or firmness or resilience;
  • (adjective) lacking in rigor or strictness; "such lax and slipshod ways are no longer acceptable"
  • (adjective) emptying easily or excessively; "loose bowels"

Sentence Examples:

Kaufman sat with her arm still entwining the slender but lax form.

Shelley may be considered to allow himself more than an average degree of latitude in rhyming: but it is a fact that, if the general body of English poetry is scrutinized, it will be found to be more or less lax in this matter.

It was, for example, obvious that these big people, who were the backbone of Imperialism and Conservatism, were temperamentally lax, much more indolent, much more sensuous, than our deliberately virtuous Young Liberals.

His head fallen forward, chin resting on his chest, mouth ajar, inert arms dangling over the arms of the chair, heavy legs lax, the Englishman sat quite dead, dead without a sign to show how death had come to him.

He had three wives, and, so far as observation went, I should judge that most of the men present had imitated his voluptuous tastes and apparently lax morals.

The probability of such a conflict grows stronger as we become more lax in pacific measures of defense, and show less determination to protect the German soil at all costs.

Although many of his works are lax and careless in structure, yet if a final test in greatness in the field of novel writing be the power to vitalize character, very few writers can be held to surpass Sir Walter Scott.

They had temporized with the Gentile and had grown lax among themselves.

The most lax moralist counts a lie wrong, even when the motive is unselfish, and springs from the desire to give pleasure to those whom it is our duty to please.

Even the mother herself sometimes finds herself in substantially this position with her own children; as, for example, when after some years of lax and inefficient government she becomes convinced that her management has been wrong, and that it threatens to bring forth bitter fruits unless it is reformed.

In a minute Perry had whipped off the camel's skin, and a lax, limp object, his clothes hanging on him damply, his hand clenched tightly on an almost empty bottle, stood defiantly before them.

She was that, and most adorably, her bright hair soft about lax brows, her full lips parted, her strong white hands lying in his like brooding birds.

The soldier of the early Republic was hence taught gymnastics only as a means of increasing his efficiency; the lax praetorian and the corrupt populace of the Empire turned gladly from the gymnasium to the circus and the amphitheater.

Morals are very lax throughout the country, and wives are not thought badly of for being unfaithful; the worst they may expect being severe chastisement from the injured husband.

They were also usually at odds with the southern Indians, but among themselves they were frequently united in time of war into a sort of lax league, and were collectively designated by the Americans as the northwestern Indians.

The fact was that in this unsettled time the bond of Governmental authority was almost as lax among the whites as among the Indians, and the leaders on each side who wished for peace were hopelessly unable to restrain their fellows who did not.

Americans reluctant to war against Indians; culpably lax in defense of their honor.

It is as easy to transmit shiftlessness, idleness and lax habits as disease.

There is no better known form of Irish humor than that commonly called the "Irish bull," which is too often set down to lax thinking and faulty logic.

The lax code of the wilderness was irresistible to a Frenchman; but he was near enough in age and in texture of soul to this noble pagan to see at once, with her eyesight, how he had degraded the very vices of her people.

Much confusion of thought has arisen upon this subject, the upholders of lax divorces always assuming that the opponents mean to compel persons to live together in misery or incompatibility, which, of course, is far from the case.

In stature about six feet, with an unexceptionable make, but lax appearance.

The President's large figure stood before them, at first inspired, glorified with the thrill and swing of his words, lapsing slowly in the stillness into lax, ungraceful lines.

It was not merely that the sinister motive, thus engendered in the minds of too lax and facile men, induced them to betray their legislative trust, and barter their own uprightness and the interests of the State.

It is written to try and make opponents understand and respect one another, not to set them at one another, least of all to make them "liberal," that is, lax and contemptible, ready to explain everything away.

If some have grown lax and temporize a little, with more firmness on your part mingle a little sympathy for them.

When one of the sons left home to work elsewhere, he was expected to bring or send home all his earnings, except what he required for food, lodgings, and other necessary expenses; and if he understood the word "necessary" in too lax a sense, he had to listen to very plain-spoken reproaches when he returned.

From this principle you will easily see that if they had none but lax casuists they would defeat their chief purpose, which is to include the whole world.

On the other hand, the vast number of their lax casuists are at the service of the innumerable multitude who seek the broad and easy way.

In active warfare discipline while stricter in some ways is more lax in others, and there were many small points that required furbishing.

With the lax habits and easy familiarity of his race, he had a little world of self-indulgence and misrule around him.

Men who are woefully lax in their marriage relations are very apt to regard their wives with suspicion.

It may be that Bacon's known difficulties about money, his expensive ways and love of pomp, his easiness of nature, his lax discipline over his servants, encouraged this profuseness of giving.

Discipline was rather lax that night, and there was much visiting to and fro in the rooms.

Industries in states where the laws were stringent were found to be at a disadvantage in comparison with like industries in states where the laws were lax, and this came to be regarded as a species of unfair competition.

Moreover, there would be this advantage attached, namely, that sentries would be lax and that, with many persons coming and going in and about the ranch, the passage of a familiar figure, such as they would take Jack to be, would arouse no comment.

In the Reign of Terror this lax system was replaced by the despotism of the secret committees, and the way was thus paved for a return to organized central control, such as was exercised by the Directory.

In the Reign of Terror this lax system was replaced by the despotism of the secret committees, and the way was thus paved for a return to organized central control, such as was exercised by the Directory.

If a young woman's familiar or otherwise lax behavior deserves censure, a casual unflattering remark may not add to your own popularity if your listener is a relative, but you can at least, without being shamefaced, stand by your guns.

The causes of failure were many: Hasty action, inexperience, lax shop discipline, internal dissensions, high rates of interest upon the mortgage of the plant, and finally discriminations instigated by competitors.

When the muscular system is lax and weak, on the other hand, deformity such as scoliosis is very readily caused.

Babcock was by birth an Episcopalian, though he had been lax in his interest during early manhood.

Compared to this particular law the stringency of the Old Game regulation for Thursday was lax indeed.

Watson was a pious, sensible young man, of great integrity; the others rather more lax in their principles of religion, particularly Ralph, who, as well as Collins, had been unsettled by me, for which they both made me suffer.

Again, defective as were the arrangements in the squadron itself, and lax as were its training and discipline, no torpedo hits were made, so far as we can judge, after the Russian guns and searchlights got into play.

Men of the stamp and caliber of these ranchers who were hearing of a neighbor's losses only as a sort of prelude to their own, were not patient men at the best, nor did such lives as they led permit of lax hands and natures without initiative.

I know one thing, that if I am 'lax and latitudinarian,' the Sunday Catechism is to blame for a part of it.

This is a triumph over the lax, uncleanly shiftlessness of the Southern settlement.

To any county, city, or town these deputies were to be dispatched when it became apparent that police or sheriffs were lax or dishonest in enforcing the prohibitory law.

Among men there may not have been any more immorality than at present, but certainly there was much more freedom of action along this line and apparently much less shame over the revelations of lax living.

These principles, whether lax or strict, low or high in moral tone, become, by an insensible and imperceptible adoption, their principles, and are carried out by them into the duties and avocations of future life.

He should know that when the executive is lax the best of laws fall into abeyance, and he should know how such officers can be held up, through criticism by public opinion and penalties, to the fulfillment of duties.

In the first place no two policemen enforce the law with the same stringency; one is inclined to be lax and lenient, while another will not allow a single case to escape.

He had to wait two hours at this railway junction; and this time he pleasantly expended in eating many dishes at a restaurant, and amusing the lax porters by teaching them a method of economizing energy in shifting trunks.

All this is scant justice to the Georgian group; but it may give a hint of what the Bible meant even at that period, the period when its grip on men was most lax in all the later English history.

Dale's head had fallen forward; he was swinging slowly back and forth, his body limp and lax.

First impressions are truly the most lasting, and if she comes into a littered, soiled, untidy kingdom, you may expect her reign to be proportionally lax and her respect for your housekeeping abilities conspicuously absent.

"Your uncle, who holds such a lax view of the avuncular offices?"

She had lain back in the carriage, her head lax against the cushions, and simply permitted the whole procession of events, like some retreating army with death at its heels, to stagger across her brain.

We went in the meantime to the little wooden inn and ate largely of strange dishes, dried reindeer flesh, smoked strips of salmon, lax, I think it is called, served with a curious sweet sauce, and drank many glasses of tea.

When men live as you have done since your marriage, it is scarcely surprising that wives should emulate their lax example.

The authorities endeavored to shuffle the responsibility for being without blankets upon the prisoners themselves, unblushingly stating that they had been careless in looking after them, had lost them, or had been so lax as to let them be stolen.

And this necessity is not confined within the strict limits of physical causes, but is more lax, and takes in moral and even presumed and argumentative necessity, a necessity which is in fact nothing more than a great degree of expediency.

Both kinds of organized religious life have their difficulties: the one, the martinet superior and the routine subject; the other, the capricious subject and the lax superior.

The next day was one of those lax Mondays which come before the Tuesdays and Wednesdays when business has girded itself up for the week, and I got home from the office rather earlier than usual.

In providing for a catechism, for authoritative editions of the Vulgate, breviary and other standard works, in regulating moot points, in striking at lax discipline, the council did a lasting service to Catholicism and perhaps to the world.

The flowers form a lax panicle, interspersed with a little foliage.

Then, as now, the "Maine law" prohibited the sale of intoxicants; but this happened to be one of the numerous periods when the authorities were lax in enforcing the law.

Completely disgusted with the lax manner in which the sheriff had conducted the search, David reported to him the finding of Tom, with a scathing arraignment which the inefficient official accepted in scowling silence.

There the grasp of Calvinism was most lax.

For all this, interest in the rainmaker's efforts did not lax.

The biographers of Mohammad and the narrators of his campaigns are too lax in enumerating the expeditions led by Mohammad.

That the American people, with their political inheritance, should have consented even by a small majority to abandon their traditional lax government, remains one of the most remarkable political decisions in history.

Another companion, older than himself, thinking that the religious views of Burns were too rigid and uncompromising, induced him to adopt "more liberal opinions," which in this case, as in so many others, meant more lax opinions.

Though sometimes lax in points of grammar, as was much the custom in his day, he wrote as delightful a style as is to be found in all English literature, and that too when the stilted, verbose, and turgid habit was tediously prevalent.

He was certainly a little scandalized at Imam Sharif's lax ways in religion, for he was one day sitting without his turban when some coffee was brought.

Of course, he was proud of his own staunchness, and a little inclined to criticize the lax principles of men who, for the sake of carrying on her Majesty's Government, could be Conservatives one day and Liberals the next.

If a pupil was lax in any particular regarding his room, he was given a demerit in consequence thereof.

It was a long and costly effort on their part, extending nearly two years in the case of O'Brien, but it gave notice to the world that Canadians would not tolerate lax views on the sacredness of human life.

The lax conduct of the Spanish authorities was held to justify the aggressive measures of Jackson.

If he had broken off those low boughs in order that he might obtain a view of the road, he had forgotten his own purpose; if he had walked all the way out to this spot and was waiting, his vigilance had grown lax, his aim slipped from him.

In its unexcited state the vagina is lax, its walls are closed together, and their surfaces covered by but little lubricating secretion.

If the sheriff of the region was lax, the settlers took the matter into their own hands, enrolled themselves as vigilantes, hunted the thieves down, hanged those whom they captured, and shot at sight those who tried to escape.

Inflorescence is either a raceme of spikes or, a lax or contracted panicle.

The inflorescence is a narrow, lax panicle with short, erect, capillary branches.

The news was confirmed, all to the same end; and when Simeon Pratt rose from his desk that night his jaw hung lax, his big form stooped and shambled as though twenty additional years had suddenly been heaped upon his shoulders.

Richard was known to be lax and worldly in his conduct, and he was believed to be conservative and even royalist in heart.

In most cases it will be found sufficient merely to raise the lax portion over the sclerotic with forceps, and divide it freely, removing a transverse portion.

Only in certain very select cases, where the hernia is recent, the constricting parts lax, the general symptoms very mild, and where there is reason to believe the bowel has completely escaped injury by compression or the taxis.

A civilized army has indeed a code and public opinion of its own, which counts for some sterling qualities, but it is lax and ineffective for much that goes to complete manhood.

For the rigid they may have a stricter morality, but for the lax their casuistry supplies a pliable code of morals, which, by the aid of ingenious distinctions, can find excuses for the worst of crimes.

It is said that the voting was so lax that if a stranger had been inscribed and did not turn up to vote, his legitimation was used by a native.

The Irish levies, in a state of more lax discipline, were collected in merry groups, whiling away the time in thriftless and noisy discourse.

That she lived in a society so lax and corrupt, unprotected and surrounded by distinguished admirers, without a shadow of suspicion having fallen upon her fair reputation is a strong proof of her good judgment and her discretion.

When we had become thoroughly parboiled and lax, we descended to the floor, seated ourselves upon the stools, and were scrubbed with soap as thoroughly as propriety permitted.

The English law touching forgery became, at a later period, barbarously severe; but, in 1698, it was absurdly lax.

That feeling of gentleness and conscious pathos that floods the weak and empty and lately racked body was mine, and I looked pensively at the white, blue-veined hand that lay so lax on the counterpane.

When the hair is unnaturally greasy and lax (a defect that seldom occurs), the use of the astringent washes just referred to, or of a little simple oil slightly scented with the essential oil of bitter almonds, will tend to remove or lessen it.

Their prelates foster such ideas by saying that the lax conduct of one is avoided by giving him an associate.

Though I was lax at the time, and lolling and lazy, yet presence of mind remained.