Whats the Meaning of たるみきる？

Question

So i came across this sentence in a newspaper article

与党が各党と修正協議をしている間、特別委員会での審議は、たるみ切っていた。

That I translated into

While the ruling party together with the other parties were negotiating the revised bill,the discussions of the 特別委員会 were [ ]

Now what exactly does たるみきる mean? With たるみ meaning something along the line of "dullness" or "boredom", and 切る having a whole lot of translation, whereby "terminating" seems to refer to discussion, what does this come out to? It seems like a fix expression, that i can not derive.

Answer 1

This たるみ is not a noun, but the masu-stem of the verb (弛{たる}む) that the noun is based on. In both forms, it can indeed refer to a sense of dullness, but its base meaning is "to loosen/slacken", and this often extends to a metaphorical sense (similar to the English "slack off"). So if the 審議 is たるんでいる, it means that the investigation is very "loose" - in other words, not strict enough.

As for the 切る, when used as part of a compound verb like this, it generally indicates to do something "completely" or "to the absolute limit". (eg. レースを走る is to "run a race", but レースを走り切る is to "run the race to the end".) So while 弛んでいる on its own would mean the investigations were simply "loose", 弛みきっている means that they were "completely loose" or "as loose as they could possibly be" - it's essentially a superlative, showing that the writer thinks this special committee is not fulfilling its duties in the slightest.