Fast and Loose (To play)

To run with the hare and hold with the hounds; to blow both hot and cold; to say one thing and do another. The allusion is to a cheating game practised at fairs. A belt is folded, and the player is asked to prick it with a skewer, so as to pin it fast to the table; having so done, the adversary takes the two ends, and looses it or draws it away, showing that it has not been pierced at all.

“He forced his neck into a noose,

To show his play at fast and loose;

And when he chanced tʹescape, mistook,

For art and subtlety, his luck.”

Butler: Hudibras, iii. 2.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Fast and Loose (To play)

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