loaves

Noun

loaf (plural loaves)

1. (also loaf of bread) A block of bread after baking.
   • Philander went into the next room[…]and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm. Then he put the coffee pot on the stove and rummaged out a loaf of dry bread and some hardtack.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC
2. Any solid block of food, such as meat or sugar.
   • sugar-loaf1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “IV. Century.”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William...
3. A solid block of soap, from which standard bar soap is cut.
4. A particular still life configuration with seven living cells.
   • It runs for 17331 generations before stabilizing as 136 blinkers, 109 blocks, 65 beehives, 18 loaves, 18 boats, 7 ships, 4 tubs, 3 ponds, 2 toads, and 40 gliders.1989 November 20, Dean Hickerson, “Life: glider gun origin”, in comp.theory.cell-automata (Usenet)
5. (informal, slang) A catloaf.

See all 7 meanings of loaf