[Pa. pple. of LOSE v.1]
1. That has perished or been destroyed; ruined, esp. morally or spiritually; (of the soul) damned.
a. 1533. Ld. Berners, Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. (1546), K vj. The greatteste signe of a loste man is to lease his time in naughty workes.
1590. Sir R. Williams, Disc. Warre, 58. Wee were lost men but for our owne wits and resolution.
1678. Bunyan, Pilgr., I. 15. As the sinner is awakened about his lost condition.
a. 1715. Burnet, Own Time (1724), I. 548. He was reckoned a lost man.
1780. Falconer, Dict. Marine, Lost, the state of being foundered or cast away; expressed of a ship when she has either sunk at sea, or struck upon a rock.
1818. Shelley, Rosalind & Helen, 392. In my lost soul’s abandoned night.
b. Having the mental powers impaired. Lost of wits: imbecile (cf. dial. use of lost in this sense).
1821. Shelley, Ginevra, 12. Deafening the lost intelligence within.
1861. Thackeray, Four Georges, i. 6. One thinks of a descendant of his two hundred years afterwards, blind, old, and lost of wits, singing Handel in Windsor Tower.
† c. transf. Desperate, hopeless. Obs.
1709. Mrs. Manley, Secr. Mem. (1736), II. 101. He loved me after a lost manner. Ibid. (1720), Power of Love (1741), III. 214. She loves you in a lost manner, she is ready to die.
2. Of which some one has been deprived; not retained in possession; no longer to be found. Also, of a person or animal: Having gone astray, having lost his or its way.
1526. Tindale, Matt. xv. 24. I am not sent but vnto the loost shepe of the housse of Israhel.
1560. Bible (Genev.), Lev. vi. 4. He shal then restore … the lost thing which he founde.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 55. The thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him.
1756. C. Lucas, Ess. Waters, Ded. The grateful votaries [desired] to teach others how to recover lossed health.
1828. Moore (title), Limbo of Lost Reputations.
1830. Lyell, Princ. Geol., I. 4. The imperfect remains of lost species of animals and plants.
1845. Browning (title), The Lost Leader.
1849. Chambers’s Inform. People, II. 652/2. If a ‘Lost ball’ be called, the striker shall be allowed six runs.
1849. Dickens, Dav. Copp., xlvi. It occurred to me that she might be more disposed to feel a woman’s interest in the lost girl.
1896. A. E. Housman, Shropshire Lad, xxxiii. To this lost heart be kind.
Comb. a. 1845. Hood, Lost Heir, 24. Has ever a one seen anything about the streets like a crying lost-looking child?
¶ To give (over or up) for lost, also to give lost: see GIVE v. 31 b.
3. Of time, labor, space: Not used advantageously; spent in vain; † hence, vain, groundless. Of opportunities: Not turned to account, missed.
a. 1500. Chaucer’s Dreme, 156. It were but paine and lost travaile.
1535. [see LABOUR sb. 1 b].
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., II. ii. 11. It were lost sorrow to waile one that’s lost. Ibid. (1604), Oth., V. ii. 269. Do you go backe dismaid? ’Tis a lost feare.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., II. 111. My friend … repented himselfe of the lost time and charges, which he had spent in the sute.
1855. Hopkins & Rimbault, Organ, xxxvii. 274. It can never be correctly said that ‘unoccupied space’ in an Organ, within reason, is ‘lost room.’
1889. ‘R. Boldrewood,’ Robbery under Arms, xv. He began … to make up for lost time.
4. Of a battle, game: In which one has been defeated. Also transf. Of a person: That has lost the day; defeated (poet.).
1724. De Foe, Mem. Cavalier (1840), 298. I saw it was a lost game.
1808. Scott, Marm., VI. xxxii. In the lost battle, borne down by the flying.
1822. Shelley, Hellas, 294. So were the lost Greeks on the Danube’s day.
5. To be lost to: a. To have passed from the possession of; to have been taken or wrested from.
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 479. Other joy To me is lost.
1744. Ozell, trans. Brantome’s Sp. Rhodomontades, 63. This Battle being lost to us.
1796. Jane Austen, Pride & Prej., xliii. My uncle and aunt would have been lost to me; I should not have been allowed to invite them.
1845. Sarah Austin, Ranke’s Hist. Ref., III. 363. The basis of power … was thus of necessity lost to the Five Cantons.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., xliii. 9. So then were nothing lost to man.
1870. Morris, Earthly Par., II. III. 10. In the lore long dead, Lost to the hurrying world, right wise she was.
b. Of a person: To be so depraved as to be inaccessible (to some good influence); to have no sense of (right, shame, etc.). Also rarely in neutral sense, to be ‘dead’ to, to have lost all interest in.
1640. Shirley, St. Patrick, IV. F 4. Thou lost thing to goodnesse.
1654. State Case Commw., 8. So lost and loose were that party of men to all former principles.
1682. T. Flatman, Heraclitus Ridens, No. 78 (1713), II. 228. Being lost to all Humanity.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 30, ¶ 1. Who are not so very much lost to common Sense, but that they understand the Folly they are guilty of.
1769. Sir W. Jones, Pal. Fortune, Poems (1777), 31. Resign’d to heaven, and lost to all beside.
1819. Crabbe, T. of Hall, VI. A creature lost to reason.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., vi. II. 92. Lost to all sense of religious duty.
1859. Tennyson, Vivien, 63. He lay as dead And lost to life and use and name and fame.
† c. To be forgotten by, unknown to (the world).
1626. Shirley, Brothers, II. i. (1652), 19. Men whose expectations are like yours Come not with honour to court such as I am, (Lost to the World for want of portion) But with some untam’d heat of blood. Ibid. (1636), Duke’s Mistress, III. iii. (1638), F 2. My Lord I know not with what words to thanke Your feeling of my sufferings. I will now Beleeve I am not lost to all the World.
6. In special collocations: lost day, level (see quots.); lost motion, imperfect transmission of motion between two parts of a machine which communicate one with the other, due to faulty construction or looseness of the parts; lost Sunday (see SUNDAY).
1867. Smyth, Sailor’s Word-bk., *Lost day, the day which is lost in circumnavigating the globe to the westward, by making each day a little more than twenty-four hours long.
1860. Eng. & For. Mining Gloss. (Cornwall Terms), *Lost levels, levels which are not driven horizontally.
1877. Raymond, Statist. Mines & Mining, 421. The movement being continuous and rapid in one direction—so that there is no *loss motion [sic].
1884. Knight, Dict. Mech., Suppl., Lost Motion, looseness of fitting, incident to wear of parts.
7. absol. (with the).
1849. Ayton, Buried Flower, 72. All I loved is rising round me, All the lost returns again.
1871. R. Ellis, trans. Catullus, viii. 2. Lost is the lost, thou know’st it, and the past is past. Ibid., lxxvi. 18. A help to the lost.
b. pl. Advertisements of lost articles.
1761. Ann. Reg., 242. The number of losts … in the Daily Advertiser of next day.
