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She looked down at me, the bun of hair loose on her neck.

The above sentence is taken from Dreams Do Come True by Jim Bishop.

Is the word loose used correctly?

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  • 2
    Why do you think it is not correct? It sounds fine to me. If you can edit your question to be more specific, that would help.
    – Catija
    Aug 31, 2015 at 5:28
  • 2
    Please do not use pairs of angled single quotes for typographic quotes, as this is awkward to read and usually messes up formatting; just use ordinary double quotes (") or full-on Unicode (“”). Aug 31, 2015 at 5:30
  • What does your dictionary say about " loose"?
    – rogermue
    Aug 31, 2015 at 8:05

2 Answers 2

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The writer is expressing that woman's gesture.

Bun is a hairstyle with hair put into a tight roll. But here, it's loose on her neck.

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  • +1. Here, "loose" means that it was not tightly rolled. The hair may have been loosely rolled up to begin with, or it may have worked itself loose.
    – TimR
    Aug 31, 2015 at 12:17
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I think loose it's used correctly.

I think what you might be expecting are more modern or more typical patterns people might use. Like any of the following:

  • Her bun of hair hung loosely upon her neck.
  • Her bun of hair was loose upon her neck.

Which are both also correct.

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