loosely

Adverb

• in a relaxed manner; not rigid
  • "his hands lay loosely"
• in a loose manner
  • "a union of loosely federated states"
• without regard to specific details or exceptions
• knitted in a loose manner
  • "loosely knit"

Adv

• In a loose manner.
• Not tightly.
• Approximately.
• Used to indicate an imprecise use of words; short for loosely speaking

Examples

• a comic loosely based on an Old Norse epic
• A whale is, loosely, maybe very loosely, a fish.
• Insert all the bolts loosely, then tighten them.
• It's red, to use the term loosely, sort of brown and sort of orange, let's call it reddish.

Synonyms

broadly, broadly speaking, generally, slackly, -ish, -some, about, all but, almost, approaching, around, by and large, circa, close, close to, essentially, for all practical purposes, fornigh, give or take, imprecisely, just about, kind of, loosely, more or less, near, nearabout, nearly, nigh on, odd, or so, plus or minus, roughly, roundly, say, some, sort of, thereabout, virtually, well-nigh, ±

Antonyms

narrowly, tightly