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. iii. 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. J. 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.
