Loft

How to spell loft

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce loft

What does loft mean?

1. nounA room or storage space directly under the roof of a building, usually reached by a ladder or stairs.
2. nounA large, open-plan living space converted from a former warehouse or industrial building.
3. verbTo hit, throw, or kick something high into the air.

Loft in a sentence

• noun

  We stored the old suitcases in the loft above the garage.

• noun

  They rented a stylish loft in a former textile mill downtown.

• verb

  The striker tried to loft the ball over the goalkeeper.

• noun

  The cottage had a cramped sleeping loft reached by a wooden ladder.

• noun

  The artist used the spacious loft as both a home and a studio.

• verb

  She can loft the golf ball cleanly onto the green.

Where does loft come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Loft comes from the Old Norse word lopt, which meant the air or sky and also an upper room or attic. Scandinavian settlers brought the word into late Old English, where it took hold during the Viking age, and the same root survives in modern words like 'aloft', meaning up in the air. The original sense of 'sky' explains why a loft is the highest space in a building, tucked under the roof. Over the centuries the meaning broadened from a barn's upper storey to the airy, open-plan apartments converted from old industrial buildings. The verb sense, to send something high into the air, grew naturally from that idea of height, which is why a golfer or a footballer can loft a ball. Because the word is short and phonetic, the spelling itself has stayed remarkably stable.

How the word is built

• loft (from Old Norse lopt: upper room, air, sky)