loaf
pronunciation
How to pronounce loaf in British English:
UK [ləʊf]
How to pronounce loaf in American English:
US [loʊf]
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- Noun:
- a shaped mass of baked bread
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- Verb:
- be lazy or idle
- be about
Word Origin
- loaf
- loaf: English has two words loaf. By far the older is ‘portion of bread’ [OE], which goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *khlaibaz. This also produced German laib and Danish lev ‘loaf’, and was borrowed, originally into Gothic, from an Old Slavic chleb (source of modern Russian and Polish chleb ‘bread, loaf’). Heavily disguised, loaf forms part of both lady and lord (which etymologically mean respectively ‘loafkneader’ and ‘loaf-guardian’), and it also contributed the first syllable to Lammas [OE], literally ‘loaf-mass’.The verb loaf ‘dawdle, mooch’ [19] seems to have been a back-formation from loafer, which was probably adapted in 19th-century American English from German landläufer ‘vagabond’, a compound of land ‘land’ and läufer ‘runner’ (to which English leap is related).=> lady, lord; leap
- loaf (n.)
- late 13c., from Old English hlaf "portion of bread baked in a mass of definite form," from Proto-Germanic *khlaibuz (cognates: Old Norse hleifr, Swedish lev, Old Frisian hlef, Old High German hleib, German Laib, Gothic hlaifs "bread, loaf"), of uncertain origin, perhaps connected to Old English hlifian "to raise higher, tower," on the notion of the bread rising as it bakes, but it is unclear whether "loaf" or "bread" is the original sense. Finnish leipä, Old Church Slavonic chlebu, Lithuanian klepas probably are Germanic loan words. Meaning "chopped meat shaped like a bread loaf" is attested from 1787.
- loaf (v.)
- 1835, American English, back-formation from loafer (1830). Related: Loafed; loafing. The term "loafing" is, of course, very vague. Its meaning, like that of its opposite, "work," depends largely on the user. The highly successful quarterback with an E in Greek is a loafer in his professor's eyes, while the idea of the professor's working, in spite of his voluminous researches on Mycenean Table Manners, would excite hoots of derision from the laborer that lays the drains before his study window. [Yale Literary Magazine, May 1908]
Example
- 1. When putting the bread in the freezer , don 't crush the loaf .
- 2. This should be targeted to the people who cannot afford to buy a 25 - or 40-piaster loaf .
- 3. We meet our very diverse study groups and make many solemn promises not to socially loaf .
- 4. " No , but I shall go home to-morrow and take grandmother a white loaf , " explained heidi .
- 5. I came to find out that it was pretty easy and it was actually much cheaper , healthier , and tastier than buying a loaf from the store .