loaf
1 Americannoun
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loaves
plural
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a portion of bread or cake baked in a shaped or molded mass, usually oblong with a rounded top.
I try to keep a loaf of sliced bread in the freezer.
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a shaped or molded mass of food, as of ground meat or vegetables.
The loaf is made with lentils and vegetables, and you can see the colorful bits of bell peppers speckled through it.
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British.
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the rounded head of a cabbage, lettuce, etc.
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Slang: Older Use. head or brains.
Use your loaf.
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verb (used without object)
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loafs,
present (3rd person singular)
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loafed,
past participle, past
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loafing
present participle
verb (used with object)
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loafs,
present (3rd person singular)
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loafed,
past participle, past
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loafing
present participle
noun
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a shaped mass of baked bread
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any shaped or moulded mass of food, such as cooked meat
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slang the head; sense
use your loaf!
verb
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(intr) to loiter or lounge around in an idle way
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to spend (time) idly
he loafed away his life
Synonym Usage
See lounge.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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loafsimple
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loafssimple
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have loafedperfect
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has loafedperfect
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am loafingprogressive
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are loafingprogressive
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is loafingprogressive
-
have been loafingperfect progressive
-
has been loafingperfect progressive
Past
-
loafedsimple
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had loafedperfect
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was loafingprogressive
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were loafingprogressive
-
had been loafingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of loaf1
First recorded before 950; Middle English lo(o)f, Old English hlāf “loaf, bread”; cognate with German Laib, Old Norse hleifr, Gothic hlaifs
Origin of loaf2
An Americanism first recorded in 1825–35; back formation from loafer
Explanation
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.
Vocabulary lists containing loaf
"Mending Wall," by Robert Frost
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A Toast to Bread
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The House of the Scorpion
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Large, white, long-haired cat the Big Lebowski settled into a loaf position by my head.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Very few people would consider a fresh bakery loaf to be “ultra” processed.
From Slate ● Jul. 12, 2026
Not every dinner party loaf requires a sourdough starter and a three-day commitment.
From Salon ● Jun. 22, 2026
Arthur Bryant’s has my favorite ribs, and when you order, they bring out a whole loaf of Wonder Bread, which is still very novel and exciting to me.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
I might have been sick of mangled meat loaf and puked-up sloppy joes, but Dad’s guilt was not the way I wanted to get edible food back in my life.
From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas
While others were perfecting their sourdough loaves or getting into bird-watching during the pandemic, Facundo Monteiro Kempf, a 35-year-old who works in cybersecurity for Microsoft, was memorizing Burgundian vineyard classifications.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
Bread is the first and last defense against sogginess, which is why sturdy loaves — focaccia, baguettes, bâtards, Italian bread — shine in beach-sandwich applications.
From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026
He is one of the few people outside the military who travel to the most dangerous areas, delivering bread to outlying villages that he makes in his own bakery, which produces 17,000 loaves per week.
From BBC ● Feb. 24, 2026
Throughout these trips, he distributed tens of thousands of loaves since the start of the war in 2022, mostly to elderly people who have no support from their families or from the state, Nervi said.
From Barron's ● Feb. 21, 2026
I see the loaves of bread on the counter in the pale, snowy morning light.
From "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins
Remove, punch down, and knead a few times before dividing in half to form two loafs.
From Salon ● Mar. 12, 2024
“That’s our biggest emphasis, minimizing our missed assignments and our loafs, which is just effort in playing,” Niumatalolo said.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 9, 2022
He stresses the “HITS” principle — his acronym for Hustle, Intensity, Takeaways and playing Smart — and counts loafs in practice.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 5, 2022
“Today in the film room we pointed out all the loafs and all the missed assignments, so we can definitely get better week to week and now it’s about being consistent week to week.”
From Washington Times ● Nov. 20, 2018
The only thing that loafs here is the bread!
From Kid Scanlan by H. C. (Harry Charles) Witwer
Maria answered the door as her husband, Jorrit, loafed on the couch in front of the television.
From New York Times ● May 13, 2022
The nearly 400-pound birdfeeder bandit fell for a buffet of birdseed and suet and loafed into a tube-shaped trailer trap.
From Washington Times ● Apr. 19, 2021
And in the “early candle-light of old age,” Whitman loafed by the waters of Timber Creek, near his friend Harry Stafford’s family farm in Laurel Springs, New Jersey.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 22, 2017
But Brooks has yet to coach a team that loafed and lost focus, or sleep-walked during home games, or got cocky every time it enjoyed a little success.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 27, 2016
They caught the bus, or bought stamps, as quickly as they could, and never loafed around the cafe or the fountain.
From "Everything Sad Is Untrue" by Daniel Nayeri
One of the reasons a steakhouse is such a prime place to order meatloaf is simple: the meat they are loafing is usually excellent.
From Salon ● Mar. 11, 2026
Walt Whitman inspired a former teacher’s fascination with loafing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2024
The singer-songwriter who popularized beach bum soft rock with the escapist Caribbean-flavored song “Margaritaville” and turned that celebration of loafing into a billion-dollar empire of restaurants, resorts and frozen concoctions.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 3, 2023
We struck up a conversation — about the men loafing around us, about our day jobs, whatever — and promised to meet at the bar again the following week.
From New York Times ● Apr. 12, 2021
There were only a few people loafing around the courthouse wall, so the boy sat for a spell.
From "Sounder" by William H. Armstrong
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
