† Fast 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; | |
| Tenne to one I read his fortune by the marymas fast. |
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, Tso 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. Tottell’s Misc. (Arb.), 157 [Title of Epigram], Of a new maried studient that plaied fast or loose.
1505. Shaks., John, III. i. 242. Play fast and loose with faith?
1630. R. Johnson, Relations of the Most Famous Kingdoms, etc., 369. The French playing fast and loose with their Salick Law.
1712. Steele, Spect., No. 320, 7 March, ¶ 1. A little dalliance of heart, and 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 the Wid., 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. Those few that should happen to clash, might rebound after the collison; of if they cohered, yet by the next conflict with other Atoms might be separated again, and so on in an eternal vicissitude of Fast and Loose, without ever consociating into the huge condense Bodies of Planets.
attrib. 1853. Motley, Dutch Rep., VI. iii. (1866), 821. The English Queen … had … almost distracted the provinces by her fast-and-loose policy.
