From Old English 'hlaf' (bread) — the hidden root of 'lord' (loaf-guardian) and 'lady' (loaf-kneader).
A quantity of bread baked in one piece, typically oblong with a rounded top; a shaped mass of food.
From Old English 'hlāf' (bread, loaf), from Proto-Germanic *hlaibaz (bread, loaf), possibly from a pre-Germanic substrate or borrowed from an early form related to Proto-Slavic *xlěbъ (bread). The word is one of the oldest in the English food vocabulary and is the hidden ancestor of both 'lord' (from 'hlāfweard,' loaf-guardian) and 'lady' (from 'hlǣfdige,' loaf-kneader). Bread was so central to Anglo-Saxon life
The word 'lord' literally means 'loaf-guardian' (Old English 'hlāfweard,' from 'hlāf' + 'weard'), and 'lady' means 'loaf-kneader' (Old English 'hlǣfdige,' from 'hlāf' + 'dige,' related to 'dough'). The entire English feudal hierarchy was built on bread: the lord was the one who guarded the household's bread supply, and the lady was the one who made it. Social rank was defined by your relationship to the loaf.