loafer

One theory traces this word to a shortening of "landloafer," itself possibly a partial translation of German "Landläufer," tied to dialectal German "loofen" (to run) and English "landlouper." A more likely path connects it to Middle English "love" or "loffinge" (a remnant, that which lingers), from Old English "lāf" (remainder, residue).

The shoe sense arrived later and separately: loafers earned their name simply because a "loaf" shape appeared at several stages of making them.

Old English "lāf" also gives us "leave" and is akin to Scots "lave" (the rest, remainder) — words all built around the idea of what's left behind. Curiously, a variant use of "loafer" was also borrowed from Spanish "lobo" (wolf), reinterpreted through confusion with the idler sense — making it a distant doublet of "wolf" and "lupus."