loafer
/ˈləʊfə/US/ˈloʊfɚ/
loafer noun: an idle person.
Noun (1)
loafer (plural loafers)
- 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...1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, page 39
- Along this unequal way, where loafers sat on whittled benches, lounged in doorways, leaned against porch props, Dan Gustin went pegging in his high-heeled boots like a mule in a Mexican chain hobble, holding a straight course for the hotel, past the doors of temptation.1923, George Washington Ogden, “Chapter 2”, in The Baron of Diamond Tail
- A shoe with no laces, resembling a moccasin.
- Someone must explain to Sunak about the time bomb ticking beneath his £1,000 loafers.2023 May 31, Nigel Harris, “Comment: GBR now! We have no Plan B”, in RAIL, number 984, page 3
Verb
loafer (third-person singular simple present loafers, present participle loafering, simple past and past participle loafered)
- To loaf around; to be idle.
Noun (2)
loafer (plural loafers)
- A particular orthogonal spaceship in Conway's Game of Life that moves at a speed of c/7, and the smallest such example.
Noun (3)
loafer (plural loafers)
- A wolf, especially a grey or timber wolf.
- The great menace to livestock, other than the continual battle with cold, [...] was the gray wolf. [...] The big loafers came in from everywhere.1964, Ike Blasingame, Dakota Cowboy: My Life in the Old Days, page 72
- Cowboys had killed “loafers” at five hundred yards away with rifles. [...] Lucille was not like most cowhands and she sets out to capture the "loafer" with her lariat.2010, Cynthia K. Rhodes, Lucille Mulhall: An Athlete of Her Time, →ISBN
loafer meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
loafer in Hindi
- loafer, wanderer, vagabond
- आवारा āvārā
loafer in Tamil
- காலத்தை வீணாகக் கழிப்பவர், காலத்தை வெற்றே கழிப்பவர், சோம்பித் திரிபவர், சோம்பித்திரிபவர், சோம்பேறி
loafer in Urdu
- loafer
- آوارہ āvāra
loafer in Malayalam
- layabout, idler, good-for-nothing
- ചുറ്റിക്കറങ്ങിനടക്കുന്നവൻ, അലഞ്ഞുനടക്കുന്നൻ, നാടുതെണ്ടി, ജോലി ചെയ്യാതെ കറങ്ങിനടക്കുന്നവൻ, അധോഗന്താവ്, കിംക്ഷണൻ
More languagesFewer languages
- loafer in Kannada
- ಪೋಲಿ ತಿರುಗುವವ, ಕೆಲಸವಿಲ್ಲದೆ ಸುತ್ತಾಡುವವ, ಪೋಲಿ ತಿರುಗುವವನು, ಕೆಲಸವಿಲ್ಲದೆ ಸುತ್ತಾಡುವವನು
- loafer in Punjabi
- ਲਫੰਗਾ laphaṅgā
- loafer in Indonesian
- pantofel
Examples of loafer in a sentence
- In the big city, the young population wore loafers or boots.
- He leaned back and put his expensively loafered feet on one of my chairs.
- I would give him some thugged-out braids, a wife-beater, a pair of jeans, and penny loafers.
Synonyms of loafer
Forms of loafer
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | loafers |
| alternative form | lobo |
| alternative form | lobo wolf |
| alternative form | lofer |
| alternative form | lover |
| alternative form | loper |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | loafers |
| present participle | loafering |
| past participle | loafered |
| past | loafered |
Origin of loafer
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.
Words formed from loafer
Phrases with loafer
Words that rhyme with loafer
Questions about loafer
- What does loafer mean?
- Loafer means an idle person.
- What is loafer in Hindi?
- Loafer in Hindi is आवारा (āvārā). See Loafer meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is loafer?
- Loafer can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce loafer?
- Loafer is pronounced /ˈləʊfə/ (UK).
- What is the plural of loafer?
- The plural of loafer is loafers.
Words near loafer in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: loafer (page history and authors); आवारा (Hindi) (page history and authors); loafer (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); آوارہ (Urdu) (page history and authors); loafer (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); loafer (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-loafer.wav.
Cite this entry: “loafer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/loafer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.