You can loose, or loosen a knot, or lasso, or if you are rather good with ropes nets and knots, you can actually do that to an entire net, give it more or less slack, grid density.

I guess its just become far less common for people to have practical, hands on experience with knots and ropes... its pretty important if you want to moor a boat to a dock, or make your own fishing net as humans have done for millenia...

Same goes for knitting, weaving, making clothes and garments of all kinds.

Ever loosened a waistband, or tightened one?

Less and less people have actual hands on experience with any of this, so I guess the metaophors/analogies aren't as obvious anymore.

Heck, loose, as a verb, just like that, also basically means 'to throw' or 'to project away from you'.

You loose an arrow, or a javelin.

You let loose a hail of bullets, ie, throw them downrange, away from you.

You loose a dog, to set it free, or perhaps to go run off and chase/attack something.

Which is differenrt from losing a dog, which is when it fails to return from you loosing it.