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laxly

 [laks]   Origin

lax

   [laks]
adjective, -er, -est.
1.
not strict or severe; careless or negligent: lax morals; a lax attitude toward discipline.
2.
loose or slack; not tense, rigid, or firm: a lax rope; a lax handshake.
3.
not rigidly exact or precise; vague: lax ideas.
4.
open, loose, or not retentive, as diarrheal bowels.
5.
(of a person) having the bowels unusually loose or open.
EXPAND
6.
open or not compact; having a loosely cohering structure; porous: lax tissue; lax texture.
7.
Phonetics. (of a vowel) articulated with relatively relaxed tongue muscles. Compare tense1 (def. 4).
COLLAPSE
Origin:
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin laxus loose, slack, wide; akin to languēre to languish; cognate with Old English slæc slack1

Related forms
lax·ly, adverb
lax·ness, noun
o·ver·lax, adjective
o·ver·lax·ly, adverb
o·ver·lax·ness, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Laxly is always a great word to know.
So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:
a scrap or morsel of food left at a meal.
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...
Collins
World English Dictionary
lax (læks)
 
—adj
1.  lacking firmness; not strict
2.  lacking precision or definition
3.  not taut
4.  phonetics (of a speech sound) pronounced with little muscular effort and consequently having relatively imprecise accuracy of articulation and little temporal duration. In English the vowel i in bit is lax
5.  (of flower clusters) having loosely arranged parts
 
[C14 (originally used with reference to the bowels): from Latin laxus loose]
 
'laxly
 
—adv
 
'laxity
 
—n
 
'laxness
 
—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

lax
c.1400, "loose" (in ref. to bowels), from L. laxus "wide, loose, open," from PIE base *sleg- "to be slack, be languid" (cf. Gk. legein "to leave off, stop," lagos "hare," lit. "with drooping ears," lagnos "lustful, lascivious," lagaros "slack, hollow, shrunken;" L. languere "to be faint, weary," languidis
EXPAND
"faint, weak, dull, sluggish, languid"). Of rules, discipline, etc., attested from mid-15c. Related: Laxity.
COLLAPSE
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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