lobcock, a lubber; a term of abuse. Udall, Roister Doister, iii. 3 (Merygreek); Gascoigne, Supposes, ii. 3 (end). In prov. use in the north country and in E. Anglia (EDD.).
Lob’s pound, prison; also fig. a state of great difficulty or entanglement; a fix. Massinger, Duke of Milan, iii. 2 (Officer); Digby, Elvira, ii. 1 (Chichon); Butler, Hud. i. 3. 910. Also Hob’s pound. See Nares.
lodam, the name of a game of cards; ‘Carica l’asino, the play at cards that we call, Load him’ (Florio); in one form, called losing loadum, the loser won the game, ‘Coquimbert qui gaigne pert, a game at cards, like our losing Lodam’, Cotgrave; Shirley, The Wedding, ii. 3 (Lodam).
lodesman, a pilot, guide; ‘Lodesman of a shippe, Pilotte’, Palsgrave; ‘A lodes-man’, Song in Tottel’s Misc., p. 184. ME. lodesman, pilot (Chaucer, Leg. G. W. 1488). OE. lādmann.
lodesmate, (?) a travelling companion. Only in Gascoigne, Glasse Govt. v. 3 (Phylocalus), in Poems (ed. 1870, ii. 77).
loffe, to laugh. Mids. Night’s D. ii. 1. 55. In EDD. loff (lough) is given as the infin. of ‘laugh’ in many parts of England (western from Lanc. to Cornwall). In Lanc. they say ‘he lough’ for ‘he laughed’. ME. lough, pret. of laughe (Chaucer, Rom. Rose, 248); OE. hlōh, laughed.
loft, uplifted, elated; ‘In neyther fortune loft, nor yet represt’, Surrey, Of the death of Sir T. W., ii. 27, in Tottel’s Misc., p. 29; and see the same Misc., p. 235, l. 11.
loggats, a game in which thick sticks are thrown to lie as near as possible to a stake fixed in the ground or a block of wood on a floor. Hamlet, v. 1. 99. See EDD.
lol, that which lolls; the tongue. Stanyhurst, tr. of Aeneid, iii. 442. See EDD. (s.v. Loll, vb.2: Loller, ‘the tongue’).
lollard, lazy, idle, sluggish; ‘The lolearde Asse’, Turbervile, That all things have release, st. 3. The word ‘lollard’ for a lazy person is used in Cumberland (EDD.).