fast and loose

adverb

1

: in a reckless or irresponsible manner

… played fast and loose with the public purse strings.

—Paul Stuewe

2

: in a craftily deceitful way

… manipulated evidence … and played fast and loose with the truth.

—C. V. Woodward

Examples of fast and loose in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Building on a concept devised by the director and producer Pierre-Henri Léon, Santiago Otheguy’s script plays fast and loose with Bizet’s opera and the Prosper Mérimée novella that inspired it — to the point of inventing an entirely new protagonist. —Guy Lodge, Variety, 31 May 2026

Musk’s attorneys brought him on to argue that OpenAI had played fast and loose with the technology, but Judge Gonzalez Rogers ruled that talk of existential risk was off-limits. —Gideon Lewis-Kraus, New Yorker, 20 May 2026

This version plays fast and loose with tradition, the big shortcut being a package of seasoned yellow rice that comes to the pan already flavored. —Maggie Meyer Glisan, Better Homes & Gardens, 11 Apr. 2026

For starters, someone might be fast and loose with the truth. —Georgia Nicols, Denver Post, 8 Jan. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1557, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for fast and loose

• disabuse
• introduce
• reproduce
• abstruse
• abuse
• adduce
• atreus
• caboose
• cayuse
• conduce
• deduce
• diffuse