lose it

present singular third person loses it · participle present losing it · participle past lost it · past lost it

1. To be overcome with emotion.
   1. informalTo become explosively angry; to lose one's temper.

      When my dad found out I had failed the exams, he just lost it.

      Synonyms: blow one's top, crash out, flip out, flip shit, go ape, go apeshit, go snake, hit the ceiling

   2. informalTo feel devastated, or distraught, especially when one's sadness is overwhelming.

      When she heard the news about her cousin's death, she lost it.

   3. informalTo begin to laugh uncontrollably.

      When the teacher's chair broke, the class completely lost it.

   4. informalTo lose one's mind, go crazy.
2. informalTo cease to have a skill or ability, to lose one's touch, to be washed up.

   When you think about all she's done for the sport, it's kind of sad, but she's completely lost it over the past few years.

3. idiomaticTo lose control of a situation.

   Even then, she defended everything she had sought to achieve, saying she had “the right policies at the wrong time”. “That’s when I thought ‘she’s totally lost it’,” said a former aide.

   2023 September 1, Aubrey Allegretti, “‘She’s totally lost it’: inside story of the unravelling of Liz Truss’s premiership”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 03 Feb 2024

   1 more example

   Charlie is seated in a wheelchair, his head face down on the tray, food and liquid strewn all over the floor and nearby counter. He appears to be unconscious. His feet and hands are swollen far beyond normal size. Horrified, I say his name softly. He doesn't stir. […] Later I'm told he'd "lost it" — must've just before I got there. The doctors fear it's due to CNS (Central Nervous System) damage or lesions on his brain. If so, the end is probably near.

   1988 February 14, Marea Murray, “Friction Between The Factions”, in Gay Community News, volume 15, number 30, page 6

4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see lose, it.

   ‘I’m Inspector Harper, Leeds police. Where did you lose it?’ / ‘Lose it?’ He laughed. ‘I’d never lose this. It was stolen.’

   2015, Chris Nickson, Two Bronze Pennies, Severn House Publishers, →ISBN