From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishlet somebody golet somebody goa) to allow someone to leave a place where they have been kept SYN release The police had to let him go through lack of evidence. The hijackers were persuaded to let some hostages go. b) to make someone leave their job – used in order to avoid saying this directly I’m afraid we had to let several of our staff go. → let
Examples from the Corpus
let somebody go• Due to a lack of evidence against the suspect, the police had to let the prisoner go.• I just kept praying that the man would let me go.• The police let her go after a night in jail.• We've had to let three people go this month. 