lax
/læks/noun, adjective
lax is spelled L-A-X: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 14,106th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, lax means “A salmon” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of lax is laxes.
How many letters and syllables are in lax?
| Letters | 3: L-A-X |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.5 times per million words; the 14,106th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is lax?
Lax appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 14,106th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce lax?
- US /læks/
Lax has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-lax.ogg, En-au-lax.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with lax?
3 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as lax from its last stressed vowel (/æks/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of lax
- laxes plural
- laxer comparative
- laxest superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lax mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
ScotlandUKA salmon.
- 2
slanglacrosse.
- 3
informalClipping of laxative.
adjective
- 1
Lenient and allowing for deviation; not strict.
The rules are fairly lax, but you have to know which ones you can bend.
- 2
Loose; not tight or taut.
The rope fell lax.
- 3
Lacking care; neglectful, negligent.
- 4
Describing an associative monoidal functor.
- 5
archaicHaving a looseness of the bowels; diarrheic.
- 6
(of a vowel) Produced with relatively little constriction of the vocal tract.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Lax in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | laxiste |
| German | lax , locker, lose |
| Portuguese | leniente , frouxo , negligente |
| Spanish | laxo |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does lax come from?
From Middle English lax, from Old English leax (“salmon”), from Proto-West Germanic *lahs (“salmon”), from Proto-Germanic *lahsaz (“salmon”), from Proto-Indo-European *laḱs- (“salmon, trout”). Cognate with Middle Dutch lacks, lachs, lasche (“salmon”), Middle Low German las (“salmon”), German Lachs (“salmon”), Norwegian laks (“salmon”), Danish laks (“salmon”), Swedish lax (“salmon”), Icelandic lax (“salmon”), Lithuanian lašišà (“salmon”), Latvian lasis, Russian лосо́сь (losósʹ, “salmon”), Albanian leshterik (“eel-grass”). Doublet of lox.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).