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Loafer
Definitions
- 1 An idle person.
"The garden was bounded by a three-foot brick wall with a fringe of wood rails upon the top, and against this wall was leaning a stalwart police constable, surrounded by a small knot of loafers, who craned their necks and strained their eyes in the vain hope of catching some glimpse of the proceedings within."
- 2 A particular orthogonal spaceship in Conway's Game of Life that moves at a speed of c/7, and the smallest such example.
- 3 A wolf, especially a grey or timber wolf. Southwestern, US, dialectal
"The great menace to livestock, other than the continual battle with cold, [...] was the gray wolf. [...] The big loafers came in from everywhere."
- 4 a low leather step-in shoe; the top resembles a moccasin but it has a broad flat heel wordnet
- 5 A shoe with no laces, resembling a moccasin.
"Someone must explain to Sunak about the time bomb ticking beneath his £1,000 loafers."
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- 6 person who does no work wordnet
- 1 To loaf around; to be idle. dialectal, intransitive
Etymology
Perhaps short for landloafer, possibly a partial translation of German Landläufer (compare dialectal German loofen (“to run”), and English landlouper); or more likely connected to Middle English love, loove, loffinge, looffinge (“a remnant, the rest, that which remains or lingers”), from Old English lāf (“remainder, residue, what is left”) (more at lave), which is akin to Scots lave (“the rest, remainder”), Old English lǣfan (“to let remain, leave behind”) (more at leave).
Perhaps short for landloafer, possibly a partial translation of German Landläufer (compare dialectal German loofen (“to run”), and English landlouper); or more likely connected to Middle English love, loove, loffinge, looffinge (“a remnant, the rest, that which remains or lingers”), from Old English lāf (“remainder, residue, what is left”) (more at lave), which is akin to Scots lave (“the rest, remainder”), Old English lǣfan (“to let remain, leave behind”) (more at leave).
Named due to having a loaf in several of its stages.
Borrowed from Spanish lobo (“wolf”), reinterpreted as or conflated with loafer (“idler”); compare the alternative forms which reflect other re-interpretations and conflations. Doublet of lupus and wolf.
See also for "loafer"
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