We report a cw Tm:YAP laser resonantly pumped Ho:LuVO_4 laser in passively Q-switched(PQS) mode with Cr~(2+):ZnS as a saturable absorber(SA).The influence of different transmittances of the output coupler on laser output performance is analyzed.With T = 50%,the maximum PQS average output power of 2.3 W is obtained,corresponding to the slope efficiency and the optical-optical conversion efficiency are 35.1%and 19.8%,respectively.Also,the minimum pulse width of 100 ns is achieved at the maximum pulse repetition frequency of 34.2 kHz.When the maximum cw output power is 2.7 W,the beam quality factor of the horizontal direction M_x~2 = 1.04 and the vertical direction M_y~2 = 1.10 are obtained.In addition,the central wavelength of the laser output remains to be 2057.5nm with the output coupler transmittances of 50%and 60%in both cw and PQS operations.The results show that the Cr~(2+):ZnS can be used as an SA in a Ho:LuVO_4 laser around 2-μm wavelength. We report a cw Tm: YAP laser resonantly pumped Ho: LuVO_4 laser in passively Q-switched (PQS) mode with Cr ~ (2 +): ZnS as a saturable absorber (SA). The influence of different transmittances of the output coupler on the maximum PQS output power of 2.3 W is obtained, corresponding to the slope efficiency and the optical-optical conversion efficiency are 35.1% and 19.8%, respectively. Also, the minimum pulse width of 100 ns is achieved at the maximum pulse repetition frequency of 34.2 kHz. When the maximum cw output power is 2.7 W, the beam quality factor of the horizontal direction M_x ~ 2 = 1.04 and the vertical direction M_y ~ 2 = 1.10 are obtained .In addition, the central wavelength of the laser output remains to be 2057.5nm with the output coupler transmittances of 50% and 60% in both cw and PQS operations.The results show that the Cr ~ (2 +): ZnS can be used as an SA in a Ho: LuVO_4 laser around 2-μm wavelength.