[? f. LOAF v.2 + -ER1; but the sb. may be the source of the vb. by back-formation.] One who spends his time in idleness.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, vii. 17. The men appeared to be the laziest people upon the face of the earth; and indeed … there are no people to whom the newly invented Yankee word of ‘loafer’ is more applicable than to the Spanish Americans.
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes (1850), 130/2. When we stop to change, some two or three half-drunken loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their pockets.
1852. Thoreau, Autumn (1894), 46. Even insects in my path are not loafers, but have their special errands.
1873. Leland, Eng. Gipsies & their Lang., vi. 89. When the term first began to be popular in 1834 or 1835. I can distinctly remember that it meant to pilfer. Such, at least, is my earliest recollection, and of hearing school boys ask one another in jest, of their acquisitions or gifts, ‘Where did you loaf that from?.’ A petty pilferer was a loafer, but in a very short time all of the tribe of loungers in the sun, and the disreputable pickers up of unconsidered trifles,… were called loafers.
1893. Liddon, etc., Life of Pusey, I. ii. Older boys knew that he was no loafer: and when he felt unwell he could always get off ‘fagging cricket.’
attrib. 1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., II. lvii. 397. Among the ‘loafer’ class.
1896. J. Davidson, Fleet Street Eclog., Ser. II. 81. I see the loafer-burnished wall.
Hence many nonce-wds., as Loaferdom, the state of being a loafer; Loaferess, a female loafer; Loafering, the practice or ‘occupation’ of a loafer; in quot. attrib.; Loaferish a., somewhat of a loafer; pertaining to or characteristic of a loafer; Loaferism, Loafery, the practice of loafing; Loafership, the state of being a loafer.
1838. The Sun (Baltimore), 20 Dec., 1/4. Rudiments of Loafing…. It is the height of loaferism to look over any one’s shoulder to learn the contents of any note or letter that he may be reading.
1842. B. M. Norman, Yucatan, iv. (1843), 88. The Casa-real … was the loafering-place of the Indians.
1861. Macm. Mag., IV. 76/1. Encouraging ‘loafery’ by the instances we are going to adduce of Idleness and Scampishness succeeding where Philosophy has failed.
1866. Howells, Venet. Life, xix. A scene composed of the four pleasant ruffians in the loaferish postures which they have learned as facchini waiting for jobs.
1885. Advance (Chicago), 16 July, 458. Loafers and loaferesses.
1889. McCarthy, in Home Missionary (N. Y.), Dec., 362. Loaferism and blackguardism, no matter who defends them, will find an unwholesome atmosphere.
1889. Field, 28 Sept., 448/1. The dangers which ‘loafership’ entails upon the future of any juvenile.
1893. Scribner’s Mag., Feb., 262/2. The public insult … has relapsed … into a mere loaferish breach of the peace.
1894. Forum (U. S.), May, 276. The steps from enforced idleness down into loaferdom … and crime are short and near together.
