He watched her, loafing lordly; very handsome and dear he looked in his beautiful evening clothes.
He don't like him loafing around here: he sent him home last Sunday.
Girls, I must get out and do something—this loafing is getting on my nerves.
Damascus is more inclined to loafing or to dancing than to reading.
He asked why the Nequasset was loafing there in the seaway without steering headway on her!
What's all that loafing about galleries, I ask ye, but the worst of all idling?
In the first place, let loafing of every kind, and not merely the loafing of the casual pauper, be made a misdemeanour.
Even if she wasn't too big a steamer to be loafing there, I knew her of old.
Gamekeeping is an occupation peculiarly favourable to loafing if a man is inclined that way.
He was loafing about there at night waiting for Maud, and quite ignorant of her death.
late 13c., from Old English hlaf "portion of bread baked in a mass of definite form," from Proto-Germanic *khlaibuz (cf. Old Norse hleifr, Swedish lev, Old Frisian hlef, Old High German hleib, German Laib, Gothic hlaifs "bread, loaf"), of uncertain origin, perhaps connected to Old English hlifian "to raise higher, tower," on the notion of the bread rising as it bakes, but it is unclear whether "loaf" or "bread" is the original sense. Finnish leipä, Old Church Slavonic chlebu, Lithuanian klepas probably are Germanic loan words. Meaning "chopped meat shaped like a bread loaf" is attested from 1787.
1835, American English, back-formation from loafer (1830), which often is regarded as a variant of land loper (1795), a partial loan-translation of German Landläufer "vagabond," from Land "land" + Läufer "runner," from laufen "to run" (see leap). But OED finds this connection "not very probable." Related: Loafed; loafing.