Meaning
An ambiguity or gap in a set of rules - a law, contract, or tax code - that lets someone evade its intent while staying technically inside it. The word is disapproving by default: the rule exists and is obeyed to the letter, but its drafter's purpose is defeated through its own wording. Almost always critical of the evader, the drafter, or both; 'no loopholes' promises are best read closely. Regional use: General English (military-architecture origin).
Origin
Originally an architectural term. A loophole was a narrow vertical slit in the wall of a castle or fortification - the 'loop' element is Middle English loupe, a narrow window or slit opening, recorded from about 1300 and probably borrowed from continental Germanic, where Middle Dutch had lupen, to watch or peer - through which archers could shoot while remaining protected. The compound loop-hole dates from the mid-fifteenth century, and the figurative sense, 'an outlet, a means of escape', is recorded from the 1660s: the gap in the wall became a gap in the law. Modern usage keeps the disapproval and sharpens the legal contrast between a rule's wording and its intent, and careful writers distinguish a loophole, where an existing rule can be circumvented, from a lacuna, where no rule exists at all.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a tax loophole
- close a loophole
- exploit a loophole
- loophole in the law
Usage Examples
- Lawyers for the shipping group found a loophole in the tonnage rules, and overnight half the fleet reflagged to a registry no auditor had visited.
- Every time parliament closes one loophole, the industry's counsel find two more hiding in the definitions section.
- The contract's arbitration clause was an open loophole, and the supplier drove a coach and four through it.