Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A shaped mass of bread baked in one piece.
  • noun A shaped, usually rounded or oblong, mass of food.
  • intransitive verb To pass time at leisure; idle.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A portion of bread baked in one lump or mass; a regularly shaped or molded mass of bread; hence, any shaped or molded mass of cake, sugar, or the like.
  • noun In the medieval ch. in England, the blessed bread; a eulogia.
  • To idle away one's time; lounge; dawdle; play the vagabond; stroll idly and without purpose.
  • To pass or spend in idleness, as time; spend lazily; dawdle: with away: as, to loaf away whole days.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Any thick lump, mass, or cake; especially, a large regularly shaped or molded mass, as of bread, sugar, or cake.
  • noun refined sugar that has been formed into a conical loaf in a mold.
  • transitive verb To spend in idleness; -- with away.
  • intransitive verb To spend time in idleness; to lounge or loiter about.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To do nothing, to be idle.
  • verb Cockney rhyming slang To headbutt, (from loaf of bread)
  • noun A block of bread after baking.
  • noun Any solid block of food, such as meat.
  • noun Cockney rhyming slang Shortened from "loaf of bread", the brain or the head (mainly in the phrase use one's loaf).
  • noun A solid block of soap, from which standard bars are cut.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a quantity of food (other than bread) formed in a particular shape
  • noun a shaped mass of baked bread that is usually sliced before eating
  • verb be about
  • verb be lazy or idle

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English lof, from Old English hlāf.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably back-formation from loafer.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Probably a back-formation from loafer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English lof, laf, from Old English hlāf ("loaf, cake, bread, food, sacramental bread"), from Proto-Germanic *hlaibaz (“bread, loaf”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps related to Old English hlīfan ("to stand out prominently, tower up"). Cognate with Scots laif ("loaf"), German Laib ("loaf"), Swedish lev ("loaf"), Russian хлеб (hleb, "bread, loaf").

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Examples

Comments

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  • I am fond of the verb, to stand around idly.

    November 22, 2007

  • I am fond of the second-to-last WeirdNET definition.

    May 13, 2008

  • I am fond of the first WeirdNET definition, though I sometimes don't slice before eating.

    May 13, 2008

  • I am fond.

    May 13, 2008

  • rt: It's exquisite to bite into the rounded end of a fresh, unsliced loaf.

    May 13, 2008

  • Indeed. Nice to know a fellow bread freak. :-)

    May 13, 2008

  • As cockney slang: "Use your loaf and think next time".

    loaf (of bread) = head

    August 16, 2009