loaf

/loʊf/

/ləʊf/

Other forms: loaves; loafing; loafed; loafs

A loaf is a delicious mass of bread. The kitchen smells great — it must be time to pull that loaf of sourdough out of the oven!

If you're a lazy lover of baked goods, your dream vacation might look like this: the chance to loaf around eating one fresh-baked loaf of bread after another. The verb loaf means "laze around doing nothing," but its origin remains a mystery to word experts — although you might look like a bit like a loaf of bread when you loaf on the sofa covered in blankets.

Definitions of loaf

1. noun

   a shaped mass of baked bread that is usually sliced before eating
   synonyms: loaf of bread

   types:

   French loaf

   a loaf of French bread

   meat loaf, meatloaf

   a baked loaf of ground meat

   fish loaf

   flaked fish baked in a loaf with bread crumbs and various seasonings

   type of:

   bread, breadstuff, staff of life

   food made from dough of flour or meal and usually raised with yeast or baking powder and then baked
2. noun

   a quantity of food (other than bread) formed in a particular shape
   “meat loaf”

   “sugar loaf”

   “a loaf of cheese”

   types:

   loaf sugar, sugar loaf, sugarloaf

   a large conical loaf of concentrated refined sugar

   pound cake

   rich loaf cake made of a pound each of butter and sugar and flour

   haslet

   heart and liver and other edible viscera especially of hogs; usually chopped and formed into a loaf and braised

   headcheese

   sausage or jellied loaf made of chopped parts of the head meat and sometimes feet and tongue of a calf or pig

   lunch meat, luncheon meat

   any of various sausages or molded loaf meats sliced and served cold

   scrapple

   scraps of meat (usually pork) boiled with cornmeal and shaped into loaves for slicing and frying

   type of:

   food, solid food

   any solid substance (as opposed to liquid) that is used as a source of nourishment
3. verb

   be lazy or idle
   synonyms: bum, bum about, bum around, frig around, loll, loll around, lounge about, lounge around, waste one's time

   type of:

   idle, laze, slug, stagnate

   be idle; exist in a changeless situation
4. verb

   be about
   synonyms: footle, hang around, lallygag, linger, loiter, lollygag, lounge, lurk, mess about, mill about, mill around, tarry

   types:

   lurch, prowl

   loiter about, with no apparent aim

   type of:

   be

   have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun)