1. The act or an instance of losing: nine losses during the football season.
2. 1. One that is lost: wrote their flooded house off as a loss.
   2. The condition of being deprived or bereaved of something or someone: mourning their loss.
   3. The amount of something lost: selling at a 50 percent loss.
3. The harm or suffering caused by losing or being lost.
4. losses People lost in wartime; casualties.
5. Destruction: The war caused incalculable loss.
6. Electricity. The power decrease caused by resistance in a circuit, circuit element, or device.
7. The amount of a claim on an insurer by an insured.

at a loss

1. Below cost: sold the merchandise at a loss.
2. Perplexed; puzzled: I am at a loss to understand those remarks.

[Middle English los, from Old English. See lose.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.