loof

English

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -uːf

Etymology 1

From Middle English lufe, love, lofe, luf (“palm of the hand”), from Old English lōf, *lōfa, from Proto-Germanic *lōfô (“palm of the hand; paw; oar blade, paddle”).

Noun

loof (plural loofs)

1. (anatomy, now chiefly dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) The palm of the hand.
2. (anatomy, now chiefly dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) The hand, especially, the hand outspread and upturned.

Etymology 2

From Middle English lof (“a contrivance for altering a ship's course, paddle, oar”), from Middle Dutch loef (“an oar or paddle used in steering”), ultimately of the same origin as Etymology 1.

Noun

loof (plural loofs)

1. (nautical, obsolete) A contrivance (apparently a paddle or an oar) used for altering the course of a ship.
2. (nautical) The after part of the bow of a ship where the sides begin to curve.

Etymology 3

Noun

loof (uncountable)

1. The spongy fibers of the fruit of a cucurbitaceous plant (Luffa aegyptiaca).

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “loof”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

Related terms

• loofah

Anagrams

• Olof, floo, fool

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Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /loːf/
• Hyphenation: loof
• Rhymes: -oːf

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch lôof, from Old Dutch *lōf, from Proto-Germanic *laubą.

Noun

loof n (uncountable)

1. foliage

Derived terms

• loofboom
• loofbos
• witloof

Etymology 2

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

Verb

loof

1. (deprecated template usage) first-person singular present indicative of loven
2. (deprecated template usage) imperative of loven

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Middle Dutch

Etymology

From Old Dutch *lōf, from Proto-Germanic *laubą.

Noun

lôof n

1. leaf
2. foliage, leaves

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: loof

Further reading

• “loof”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000
• Verwijs, E., Verdam, J. (1885–1929) “loof (I)”, in Middelnederlandsch Woordenboek, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, →ISBN, page I

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Middle English

Noun

loof

1. Alternative form of lof (“loaf”)