Lost means unable to find the way, or gone missing. Get lost, lost property, the keys are lost.
Of a person it means not knowing where you are, and figuratively it means not understanding: I am completely lost. Of a thing it means missing. Lost property is the British term for the office where found items go. Note get lost, which as an instruction is rude; lost cause; lost on somebody, meaning not understood by them; and that lost is the past of lose, which is spelled with one o and constantly confused with loose.
1adjectivelostUnable to find the way.~2%
“We got lost in the old town and had to ask for directions back to the hotel.”
2adjectivemissingMissing, or no longer understood.~98%
“The whole argument was lost on about half the room.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 24 sentences found in the wild and placed 7 of them on a sense (17 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
lost is a state of being missing.
Middle English
loste
English, today
lost
From Middle English loste, losede and Middle English lost, ilost, ilosed, from Old English losode and Old English losod, ġelosod, equivalent to lose + t.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA