loaf

Pluralloaves

Formsloafs, loafing, loafed

1. 1
   breadnouncountable

   A block of bread baked as a single piece.

   He tore the warm loaf in half and handed a piece to each of the children.

   The bakery sells out of its sourdough loaves by noon most Saturdays.

   Note

   The bread sense goes back through Old English hlāf, a word for bread itself as well as a single loaf, to a Germanic word of uncertain origin. The plural keeps an old sound change, f becoming v, so one loaf makes two loaves, as with leaf and half.

2. 2
   do nothingverbintransitive

   To do nothing and pass the time idly.

   Tourists loaf on the beach while the fishermen head out to work.

   Instead of studying, he loafed around the dorm playing video games.

   Similarlaze, lounge, idle, loll

   Oppositework

   Note

   Bread plays no part in this verb: it was probably formed from loafer, so the idler had a name before the idling did. It often travels with around or about, as in loaf around the house or loaf about all summer.

3. 3
   food blocknouncountable

   Any solid block of food, such as one made of meat or sugar.

   She pressed the ground beef and onions into a loaf and baked it for an hour.

   In the old storeroom sat a cone-shaped loaf of sugar wrapped in blue paper.

   Note

   Calling a molded block of food a loaf is an old habit: Francis Bacon already writes of a sugar-loaf in Sylva Sylvarum. The food usually comes first, as in meat loaf or sugar-loaf, and the word itself supplies only the shape borrowed from bread.

4. 4
   cat posenounslangcountable

   A cat sitting with its legs tucked neatly beneath its body, so that it is shaped like a loaf of bread.

   The tabby settled into a loaf on the warm laptop and refused to move.

   Every evening the old cat turns into a loaf at the foot of the bed.

   Note

   Shortened from catloaf, the slang names a pose rather than a breed: any cat becomes a loaf while it sits that way and stops being one the moment it stretches out. It is a joking word, best kept to casual talk.

5. 5
   soap blocknouncountable

   A large solid block of soap, from which ordinary bars are cut.

   The soapmaker unmolded the loaf and sliced it into neat bars with a wire cutter.

   Once the loaves have hardened, they are sliced into bars and left to cure for several weeks.

   Similarblock

6. 6
   headnoundialectalCockneyabbreviationellipsis

   Short for loaf of bread: the head or the brain.

   Come on, use your loaf; the answer's right in front of you.

   He cracked his loaf on the cupboard door and saw stars.

   Similarhead, noggin, nut, bonce, noodle

   Note

   Cockney rhyming slang works by rhyme and then by clipping: loaf of bread rhymes with head, and the rhyming half is dropped, leaving loaf. The full phrase can also stand for dead, but the short form means the head or brain. Its home is the phrase use your loaf, and P. G. Wodehouse plays with it in Jeeves in the Offing (1960): Bertie can use his loaf even on all fours.

7. 7
   headbuttverbdialectalCockneytransitive

   To strike someone with one's head; to headbutt.

   One of the fans loafed a steward and was arrested outside the ground.

   If he starts on you, he'll loaf you before you see it coming.

   Similarheadbutt, butt

   Note

   Cockney slang turns loaf for the head into a verb, and the result is rough street talk heard about fights; elsewhere headbutt is the plain word. It shares every form with the idling verb, loafed and loafing included, so only the context tells a brawl from a lazy afternoon.

8. 8
   Game of Lifenouncountable

   In cellular automata such as Conway's Game of Life, a particular still-life pattern made up of seven living cells.

   After a few hundred generations, the chaos settled into a loaf, two blocks, and a blinker.

   Collisions between gliders sometimes leave a pair of loaves behind in the debris.

   Note

   In Conway's Game of Life a still life is a pattern that never changes from one generation to the next, and the loaf is one of the small, common ones, counted alongside blocks, beehives, boats and tubs when a chaotic pattern finally settles. Its plural is the bread one, loaves, and players speak of a quad-loaf for four of them together.

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