Verb. (common).—1. To lounge; to idle; to mike (q.v.). Fr. louper and
gouspiner.
French synonyms. Avoir les côtes en long (popular); balocher
(thieves’); louper; traîner sa peau (thieves’); n’en pas foutre une
secousse (popular); prendre le train d’onze heures (commercial);
traîner ses guêtres.
1838. Neal, Charcoal Sketches, III. ii. One night, Mr. Dobbs came
home from his loafing-place, for he loafs of an evening like the
generality of people.
1843. Norman, Yucatan, p. 88. We arrived at the town of Tincenn;
the sun being exceedingly hot, we waited till evening. The Casa
Real in this as in other towns of the province was the loafering
place of the Indians.
1843. Dickens, Martin Chuzzlewit, xvi. p. 170. Just now, Mrs.
Pawkins kept a boarding-house, and Major Pawkins rather loafed his
time away, than otherwise.
1845. New York Commercial Advertizer, Dec. The Senate has loafed
away the week in very gentlemanly style.
1857. Borthwick, California, p. 118. The street [in Hangtown,
California] was crowded all day with miners loafing about from
store to store, making their purchases and asking each other to
drink.
1861. Kingsley, Ravenshoe, II. xv. Shoe-blacks are compelled to a
great deal of unavoidable loafing, but certainly this one loafed
rather energetically.
1862. Lowell, Biglow Papers, 2nd S., Int. To loaf, this, I think,
is unquestionably German. Laufen is pronounced lofen in some parts
of Germany, and I once heard one German student say to another ‘Ich
lauf (lofe) hier bis du wiederkehrest’, and he began to saunter up
and down—in short, to loaf.
1872. Daily News, 29 Jan., ‘America in Paris.’ Its glass-roofed
courts are filled with men of few words and long purses, whose
chief mission in life seems to be that of loafing round, and paying
the endless bills which their wives send in to them. Diving into
newspapers is comprised in the verb to loaf.
1872. Black, Princess of Thule, ch. xiv. Amongst all those loafing
vagabonds.
1878. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 29. I lean and loafe at my
ease.
1880. Seebohm, Siberia in Europe, ch. xx. Gipsy emigrants who
perpetually loaf about on the outskirts.
1892. Anstey, Model Music Hall Songs, 134. I’m loafing about and I
very much doubt If my excellent Ma is aware that I’m out.
2. (American University).—To borrow, especially with no intention of
return.
To be in bad loaf, verb. phr. (old).—To be in a disagreeable situation
or in trouble.—Grose (1785).
Loafer, subs. (colloquial).—An idler.
English synonyms. Baker; beat; bummer; crow-eater; draw-latch; flunk;
ham-fatter; hayseed; heeler; inspector of pavements; lamb; Laurence (or
lazy Laurence); lazybones; miker; moucher; practical politician;
Q.H.B.; raff; scow-banker; striker; wood-and-water Joey. See Cadger.
French synonyms. La cagne (popular: also generally in contempt); un
balochard or balocheur (popular); un batteur de flemme (= Old Fr.
flegme = idleness); une baladeuse (= a female loafer); un gratte-pavé
(popular = scratch-pavement); un marpant or marpeau (whence morpion =
crab louse); un omnibus (in allusion to slowness of pace); un batteur
de pavé (popular: cf. inspector of pavements); un petrouskin (popular);
un vachard (popular); un chevalier de la loupe (popular: camp de la
loupe = an idlers’ rendez-vous; loupeur = a Saint Mondayite); un grand
dependeur d’andouilles (= one who prefers good cheer to work:
andouilles = chitterlings); un dort-dans-l’auge (pop.: also un
dort-en-chiant); une fenasse (O. Fr. fen = hay); un faignant (from
fainéant); un cul de plomb (= heavy-arse); un rossard (popular); un
fourrier de la loupe (familiar); un galapiat, galapian, or galapiau
(popular); un las-de-chier (common); Madame milord quépète or quépette
(= a lady fender); un gouapeur (thieves’).
Spanish synonyms. Zanguango, zangandongo, or zanguayo.
German synonyms. Schallef.
1840. R. H. Dana, Two Years before the Mast, vii. There are no
people to whom the newly-invented Yankee word of loafer is more
applicable than to the Spanish Americans.
1842. Dickens, American Notes, xiv. p. 111. When we stop to change,
some two or three half-drunken loafers will come loitering out with
their hands in their pockets.
1865. Lady Duff Gordon, in Macmillan’s Mag., 368. One of the
regular loafers who lurk about the ruins to beg and sell water or
curiosities and who are all a lazy, bad lot, of course.
1866. W. D. Howells, Venetian Life, iii. I permit myself,
throughout this book, the use of the expressive American words loaf
and loafer, as the only terms adequate to the description of
professional idling in Venice.
1872. Black, Adv. of a Phaeton, xviii. The loafer in moleskin stood
at some little distance.
1888. J. Runciman, The Chequers, 2. I am a loafer.
1892. F. Anstey, Voces Populi, ‘In the Mall on Drawing Room Day,’
80. A Sardonic loafer. ’Ullo, ’ere’s a ’aughty one!
Loaferish, adj. (colloquial).—Lounging.
1866. W. D. Howells, Venetian Life, xix. The four pleasant ruffians
in the loaferish postures which they have learned as facchini
waiting for jobs.
Loafing, subs. (colloquial).—Aimless lounging. Fr. la loupe.
1866. W. D. Howells, Venetian Life, iii. At night men crowd the
close little caffé ... and beguile the time with solemn loafing,
and the perusal of dingy little journals.
Adj. (colloquial).—Lounging.
1856. T. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-Days, pt. 1. ch. ii. Then
follows the greasy cap lined with fur of a half-gipsy, poaching,
loafing fellow, who travels the Vale not for much good, I fancy.
Loaver, subs. (common).—See quot. Cf. Lour, and for synonyms see Actual
and Gilt.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. & Lon. Poor, i. 472. That’s the
time you get them to rights, when they’re old and ugly, just by
sweetening them, and then they don’t mind tipping the loaver
(money).
Loaves and Fishes, subs. phr. (colloquial).—Emolument; profit; temporal
benefits [From John vi. 26].
c. 1787. John Adams, Works, v. 18. These four orders must be
divided ... into factions for the loaves and fishes.
1830. J. B. Buckstone, The Cab-driver, Act i. Do you think the
gentlemen are to have all the loaves and fishes?
1841. Punch, i. p. 18, col. 1. I only know that I am mortal by two
sensations—a yearning for loaves and fishes and a love for Judy.
Lob (or Lobb), subs. (old).—1. See quots. Fr. la grenouille. Cf.
Damper.
1718. C. Higgin, True Discovery, 15. Either by a sint, alias gold
watch ... or by a wedge lobb, alias gold or silver snuff-box.
1754. Discoveries of John Poulter, p. 42. A lobb full of glibbs, a
box full of ribbons.
1857. Snowden, Mag. Assistant, 3rd ed., p. 445. A till—a lob.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.
2. (old).—A blockhead; a lubber. For synonyms see Buffle and
Cabbage-head.
1577. Whetstone, Remembraunce [of Gascoigne]. But as the drone the
honey hive doth rob, With woorthy books so deals this idle lob.
1592. Shakspeare, Midsummer Night’s Dream, ii. 1. Farewell, thou
lob of spirits, I’ll begone.
b. 1600. Grim the Collier &c. [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), viii.
443]. Well, here in Croydon will I first begin To frolic it amongst
the country lobs.
1661. Gauden, Anti-Baal-Berith, 12. This is the wonted way for
quacks and cheats to gull country lobs.