(lōf)
noun pl. loaves loaves (lōvz) - A shaped mass of bread baked in one piece.
- A shaped, usually rounded or oblong, mass of food: veal loaf.
Word History: Loaf, lord, and
lady are closely related words that testify to bread's fundamental importance in the Middle Ages. Curiously, though bread was a staple food in many Indo-European cultures,
loaf and its cognates occur only in the Germanic languages, and
lord and
lady only in English.
Loaf derives from Old English
hlāf, “bread, loaf of bread,” related to Gothic
hlaifs, Old Norse
hleifr, and Modern German
Laib, all of which mean “loaf of bread.”
Hlāf survives in
Lammas, originally
Hlāfmaesse, “Loaf-Mass,” the Christian Feast of the First Fruits, traditionally celebrated on August 1. A
lord, Old English
hlāford, was a compound meaning “loaf-ward, keeper of bread,” because a lord maintains and feeds his household and offers hospitality. Similarly,
lady derives from Old English
hlǣfdige, which became
lady by 1382. The
-dige comes from
dǽge, “kneader,” and is related to our
dough. A lady, therefore, is “a kneader of bread, a breadmaker.”
Lord and
lady both retain vestiges of their original meanings, although England's aristocrats have not been elbow deep in flour, let alone dough, for several centuries.
