loft

Today, fancy-pants lofts are trendy. (And is the poster-child for development excess in San Francisco.) Being nonstandard housing, it gives the property developers lots of leeway to make the ground-up lofts astoundingly ugly.

Part of the problem is, being trendy, industrial spaces make more money for the landowner as housing than they did as business rentals. As a result, many small businesses are being evicted for housing development.

See: What's wrong with lofts anyway?

Loft (?), n. [Icel. lopt air, heaven, loft, upper room; akin to AS. lyft air, G. luft, Dan. loft loft, Goth. luftus air. Cf. Lift, v. & n. ]

That which is lifted up; an elevation. Hence, especially:

(a)

The room or space under a roof and above the ceiling of the uppermost story.

(b)

A gallery or raised apartment in a church, hall, etc.; as, an organ loft.

(c)

A floor or room placed above another; a story.

Eutychus . . . fell down from the third loft.
Acts xx. 9.

On loft, aloft; on high. Cf. Onloft. [Obs.] Chaucer.

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Loft, a.

Lofty; proud. [R. & Obs.] Surrey.

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Loft (?), n. (Golf)

Pitch or slope of the face of a club (tending to drive the ball upward).

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Loft, v. t.

To make or furnish with a loft; to cause to have loft; as, a lofted house; a lofted golf-club head.

A wooden club with a lofted face.
Encyc. of Sport.

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Loft, v. t. & i. [imp. & p. p. Lofted; p. pr. & vb. n. Lofting.]

To raise aloft; to send into the air; esp. (Golf),

to strike (the ball) so that it will go over an obstacle.

© Webster 1913