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;
