set loose

English

Verb

set loose (third-person singular simple present sets loose, present participle setting loose, simple past and past participle set loose)

1. (transitive) To set free, let go, release, liberate, unleash.
   • 2012 April 4, Sam Anderson, “Just One More Game ...”, in The New York Times Magazine‎^[1]:

     The new product was the Game Boy — a hand-held, battery-powered plastic slab that promised to set gamers loose, after all those decades of sweaty bondage, from the tyranny of rec rooms and pizza parlors and arcades.

   • 2021 December 29, Stephen Roberts, “Stories and facts behind railway plaques: Chester (1848)”, in RAIL, number 947, page 58:

     He laid the foundation stone on August 1 1847, and then set around 2,000 workmen loose on the undertaking. The station opened exactly one year later on August 1 1848.

Synonyms

• let loose, turn loose

References

• “set loose”, in Collins English Dictionary.