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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The House of the Scorpion
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A Toast to Bread
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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:
Buy a loaf of bread and there's a good chance it started in the fields of Charles Day's family farm in north Gloucestershire.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
For the toast I eat every day: I use spelt polenta bread from Bub and Grandma’s and a polenta Pullman loaf from She-Wolf Bakery, at Canyon and at home.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
The loaf came tightly wrapped in cling film with a small white sticker bearing a line drawing of a blue barn.
From Salon ● Aug. 31, 2026
Large, white, long-haired cat the Big Lebowski settled into a loaf position by my head.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 10, 2026
Keeping their heads low, they moved from post to post, serving each creature with a bowl of stew, some wild grapes, and a small loaf of honeyed nutbread.
From "Redwall" by Brian Jacques
When he joined the back of the line, he said, the note could purchase two loaves of bread; by the time he got to the front, it bought him half a loaf.
From Slate ● Sep. 20, 2026
They could have bought 30 loaves of bread back home for the cost of one here.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 6, 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
Within seconds, the loaves have been pulled apart, half a dozen men clutching onto precious pieces.
From BBC ● May 18, 2026
Benny took three loaves from the basket and bagged them.
From "The Vanderbeekers of 141st Street" by Karina Yan Glaser
Remove, punch down, and knead a few times before dividing in half to form two loafs.
From Salon ● Mar. 12, 2024
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
Wayans’s character loafs through training, and Berg’s undergoes a stirring transformation — and then the champion knocks out the white challenger in 27 seconds.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2017
One of them loafs across and explains to the Tribal Herald, who, next week, cries aloud that the road ought to be mended.
From Letters of Travel (1892-1913) by Rudyard Kipling
Maria answered the door as her husband, Jorrit, loafed on the couch in front of the television.
From New York Times ● May 13, 2022
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
He loafed around for the next two months and used up the money he had been saving to buy me a ring.
From Slate ● Aug. 29, 2016
Away from home, he loafed, frequented music halls, joined dining clubs and secret societies.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 15, 2015
The rest of the day we all just loafed around, talking trash and flipping through page after page of Jazz's scrapbook.
From "When I Was the Greatest" by Jason Reynolds
A brown bear known as 89 Backpack has won the annual Fat Bear Week competition, after what the US National Parks Service described as a "battle of size, skill, snack acquisition, and strategic loafing".
From BBC ● Sep. 30, 2026
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
I don’t mean the loafing tan meerkat from “The Lion King,” though he might do.
From New York Times ● Jan. 19, 2021
Themselves, they had covered twelve hundred miles with two days’ rest, and in the nature of reason and common justice they deserved an interval of loafing.
From "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London
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.
