O.E.losian “be lost, perish,” from los “destruction, loss,” from P.Gmc. *lausa (cf. O.N. los “the breaking up of an army”), from PIE base *leu– “to loosen, divide, cut apart, untie, separate” (cf. Skt. lunati “cuts, cuts off,” lavitram “sickle;” Gk. lyein “to loosen, untie, slacken,” lysus “a loosening;” L. luere “to loose, release, atone for”). Replaced related leosan (a class II strong verb whose pp. loren survives in forlorn and love-lorn), from P.Gmc. *leusanan (cf. O.H.G. virliosan, Ger. verlieren, O.Fris. urliasa, Goth. fraliusan “to lose”). Transitive sense of “to part with accidentally” is from c.1205. Meaning “to be defeated” (in a game, etc.) is from c.1533. To lose (one’s) mind “become insane” is attested from c.1500. To lose out “fail” is 1858, Amer.Eng.

Online Etymology Dictionary

See the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) etymon adapted from Pokorny: 2. leu- ‘to free, cut off, separate’

From An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language by Friedrich Kluge, trans. John Francis Davis, 1891, p. 220:

los, adjective, ‘loose, released,’ from Middle High German lôs, ‘free, unimpeded, bare, plundered, released, wanton, not solid, frivolous’; corresponding to Gothic laus, ‘empty, invalid, vain,’ Old Icelandic ‘loose, free, unimpeded,’ Anglo-Saxon leás, ‘loose, false, deceitful’ (to this is allied English leas, ‘lie’ and English -less, only as the second part of a compound; English loose is borrowed from Scandinavian), Dutch los, Old Saxon lôs; the adjective form lausa-, common to Teutonic, is from the root lus, ‘to be loose,’ discussed under verlieren. From the Teutonic adjective is derived Spanish lozano, ‘merry, cheerful.’ See lösen.

Screenshot of page 220 of Kluge’s Etymological Dictionary of the German Language, 1891, p. 220 for the word “los”
Screenshot of page 220 of Kluge’s Etymological Dictionary of German Language, 1891.

From Volume 2 of An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English by Ernest Weekley (New York: Dover), 1967, p. 863 (Google Books preview):

lose. AS. losian, to be lost. Orig. intrans., mod. sense coming from association with cogn. leese, AS. leosan (in compds.), which it has supplanted. Leese occurs in A V. (I Kings xviii. 5) where mod. editions have lose ; cf. Du. verliezen, Ger. verlieren, Goth. fraliusan. With leese, lorn, cf. Ger. verlieren (OHG. firliosan), verlorenwas, were.

Below from A Dictionary of English Etymology by Hensleigh Wedgwood, Second Edition, London: Trübner & Co., 1872, p. 397 (the screenshot follows):

Loose. Slack. Du. los, loose,slack, free; Goth. laus, loose, empty, void, of none effect; laus vairthan, to come to nothing; laus as a termination,—less; akranalaus, fruitless; andelaus, endless; lausquithrs, empty-bellied, fasting; lausavaurds, an idle talker; lausjan, to loose, separate, make void.

Screenshot of the entry for the word “loose” in Wedgwood’s 'A Dictionary of English Etymology'
From A Dictionary of English Etymology by Hensleigh Wedgwood, Second Edition, London: Trübner & Co., 1872, p. 397.

And finally from Calvert Watkins’s The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985, pp. 36-37:

Screenshot for the Indo-European root “-leu” in The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots (1885: 36-37)
The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots by Calvert Watkins, pp. 36-37 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1985)
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