loafer
/ˈləʊfə/
"loafer" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“loafer” is an uncommon English word, ranked #59,513 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #59,513
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An idle person.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | loafer |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈləʊfə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #59,513 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “loafer” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for loafer is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈləʊfə/. Corpus data places it at rank #59,513 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for loafer, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: Perhaps short for landloafer, possibly a partial translation of German Landläufer (compare dialectal German loofen (“to run”), and English landlouper); or more likely connected to Middle English love, loove, loffinge, looffinge (“a remnant, the rest, that w… The correct English form is loafer, spelled L-O-A-F-E-R.
Definition
- 1An idle person.
- 2A shoe with no laces, resembling a moccasin.
Etymology
Perhaps short for landloafer, possibly a partial translation of German Landläufer (compare dialectal German loofen (“to run”), and English landlouper); or more likely connected to Middle English love, loove, loffinge, looffinge (“a remnant, the rest, that which remains or lingers”), from Old English lāf (“remainder, residue, what is left”) (more at lave), which is akin to Scots lave (“the rest, remainder”), Old English lǣfan (“to let remain, leave behind”) (more at leave).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “loafer”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-O-A-F-E-R - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈləʊfə/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.