lose it

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

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Verb

lose it (third-person singular simple present loses it, present participle losing it, simple past and past participle lost it)

1. (informal) To be overcome with emotion.
   1. (informal) To become explosively angry; to lose one's temper.

      When my dad found out I had failed the exams, he just lost it.

   2. (informal) To feel devastated, or distraught, especially when one's sadness is overwhelming.

      When she heard the news about her cousin's death, she lost it.

   3. (informal) To begin to laugh uncontrollably.

      When the teacher's chair broke, the class completely lost it.

   4. (informal) To lose one's mind, go crazy.
2. (informal) To cease to have a skill or ability, to lose one's touch, to be washed up.

   When you think about all she's done for the sport, it's kind of sad, but she's completely lost it over the past few years.

3. (idiomatic) To lose control of a situation. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
   • 2023 September 1, Aubrey Allegretti, “‘She’s totally lost it’: inside story of the unravelling of Liz Truss’s premiership”, in The Guardian‎, →ISSN:

     Even then, she defended everything she had sought to achieve, saying she had “the right policies at the wrong time”. “That’s when I thought ‘she’s totally lost it’,” said a former aide.

4. This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
   • 1988 February 14, Marea Murray, “Friction Between The Factions”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 30, page 6:

     Charlie is seated in a wheelchair, his head face down on the tray, food and liquid strewn all over the floor and nearby counter. He appears to be unconscious. His feet and hands are swollen far beyond normal size. Horrified, I say his name softly. He doesn't stir. […] Later I'm told he'd "lost it" — must've just before I got there. The doctors fear it's due to CNS (Central Nervous System) damage or lesions on his brain. If so, the end is probably near.

5. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see lose,‎ it.
   • 2015, Chris Nickson, Two Bronze Pennies, Severn House Publishers, →ISBN:

     ‘I’m Inspector Harper, Leeds police. Where did you lose it?’ / ‘Lose it?’ He laughed. ‘I’d never lose this. It was stolen.’

Synonyms

• (to be explosively angry): blow one's top, go ape, go apeshit, go snake, hit the ceiling, freak out, hit the roof, lose one's temper, lose one's rag.

Translations

to lose one's temper

Finnish: menettää malttinsa (fi) German: die Beherrschung verlieren, die Selbstbeherrschung verlieren Italian: perdere le staffe Maori: tātāhau Norwegian: klikke (no) Portuguese: perder a linha, perder as estribeiras Spanish: perder los papeles, enajenarse (es)

Anagrams

• Lostie, Stelio, isolet, toiles