let go
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: lets go
form: letting go
form: let go
form: let go
Senses: examples: text: You're hurting him! Let him go!
text: Let go of the phone.
text: He had one hand on the bounce bottle—and he'd never let go of that since he got back to the table—but he had a handkerchief in the other and was swabbing his deadlights with it.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VI, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: But it wasn’t ransom enough.
His captors accepted it all,
But didn’t let go of the king.
ref: 1936, Robert Frost, “The Vindictives”, in A Further Range:
text: Falling from cloud nine / Crashing from the high / I'm letting go tonight / Yeah, I'm falling from cloud nine
ref: 2012, Katy Perry, Max Martin, Bonnie McKee, Dr. Luke, Cirkut, “Wide Awake”, in Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, performed by Katy Perry:
synonyms: word: release
word: unhand
word: leggo
glosses: To release from one's grasp; to go from a state of holding on to a state of no longer holding on.
raw_tags: with object before go
examples: text: You are supported, so you can just let go and relax. Inhale and slowly exhale.
ref: 2010, Gary Haymes, Go Beyond Stress:
glosses: To emotionally disengage or distract oneself from a situation.
examples: text: The secretary didn't work out, so her boss told her she was being let go.
text: Puel was let go in June despite leading Southampton to their first major final for 14 years and an eighth-place finish in the Premier League. But apparently his style was too boring and some players and many fans disliked his method, so he had to go – fair enough but look at them now.
ref: 2017 October 14, Paul Doyle, “Mauricio Pellegrino yet to find attacking solution for stuttering Southampton”, in the Guardian:
synonyms: word: decruit
word: dehire
word: unhire
word: lay off
word: fire
word: axe
word: can
word: decruit
word: dehire
word: discard
word: remove
word: discharge
word: dismiss
word: downsize
word: fire
word: give the axe
word: give someone the boot
word: give someone their cards
word: give the chop
word: give the elbow
word: give someone the heave-ho
word: give someone the old heave-ho
word: lay off
word: let go
word: let someone go
word: make redundant
word: pink slip
word: promote to customer
word: retrench
word: sack
word: serve notice
word: shit-can
word: term
word: terminate
word: throw out
word: unhire
glosses: To dismiss from employment.
examples: text: Cora gave her shoulders a rebellious toss. "I'm sick of always getting oysters; I'd sooner come out with you." Bradly let that go. "You had enough money this week without getting oysters, didn't you?"
ref: 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 135:
glosses: To ignore (a comment, etc.).
glosses: To fail to maintain a standard of appearance, behavior, or performance.
examples: text: Wow, dude! You've really let yourself go this time!
glosses: To fail to maintain a standard of appearance, behavior, or performance.
To gain weight.
qualifier: usually reflexively
examples: text: Please, Mom, can you let me go to her party?
text: We shan’t let our old car go to anyone for less than 15 grand.
glosses: Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see let, go.
Derived terms: let go and let God
let go by the run
let oneself go
let someone go