fast and († or) loose
a. An old cheating game (see quot. 1847).
| 1578 Whetstone Promos & Cass. i. ii. v. At fast or loose, with my Giptian, I meane to haue a cast. 1621 B. Jonson Gipsies Metamorph. Song i, Leave pig by and goose, And play fast and loose. 1678 Butler Hud. iii. ii. 392 Had forc'd his Neck into a Nooze, To shew his play at Fast and Loose. 1847 Halliwell, Fast-and-loose, a cheating game played with a stick and a belt or string, so arranged that a spectator would think he could make the latter fast by placing a stick through its intricate folds, whereas the operator could detach it at once. |
b. fig. to play (at) fast and loose: to ignore at one moment obligations which one acknowledges at another; to be ‘slippery’ or inconstant.
| 1557 Tottel's Misc. (Arb.) 157 [Title of Epigram] Of a new maried studient that plaied fast or loose. 1595 Shakes. John iii. i. 242 Play fast and loose with faith. 1630 R. Johnson's Kingd. & Commw. 369 The French playing fast and loose with their Salick Law. 1712 Steele Spect. No 320 ¶1 A little..playing fast and loose, between Love and Indifference. 1829 Westm. Rev. X. 185 Doctrines..which play at fast and loose with truth and falsehood. 1860 Thackeray Lovel vi. (1869) 252 She had played fast and loose with me. |
c. Hence, shiftiness, inconstancy.
| 1648 Milton Tenure Kings Wks. 1738 I. 319 The fast and loose of our prevaricating Divines. 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. 217 An eternal vicissitude of fast and loose. |
| attrib. 1855 Motley Dutch Rep. vi. iii. (1866) 821 The English Queen..had..almost distracted the provinces by her fast-and-loose policy. |