Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A staple food made from flour or meal mixed with other dry and liquid ingredients, usually combined with a leavening agent, and kneaded, shaped into loaves, and baked.
- n. Food in general, regarded as necessary for sustaining life: "If bread is the first necessity of life, recreation is a close second” ( Edward Bellamy).
- n. Something that nourishes; sustenance: "My bread shall be the anguish of my mind” ( Edmund Spenser).
- n. Means of support; livelihood: earn one's bread.
- n. Slang Money.
- v. To coat with bread crumbs, as before cooking: breaded the fish fillets.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A kind of food made of the flour or meal of some species of grain, by kneading it (with the addition of a little salt, and sometimes sugar) into a dough, yeast being commonly added to cause fermentation or “lightness,” and then baking it. The yeast causes alcoholic fermentation and the production of alcohol and carbonic acid; the latter, an expanding gas, pushes the particles of dough asunder, causing the bread to rise, and, with the alcohol, is soon expelled by the heat of the oven. See
yeast . In salt-rising bread the fermentation is said to be carried on by bacteria. Bread is sometimes made partly or wholly from the products of other than cereal plants, as beans, lentils, chestnuts, some kinds of bark, etc. - n. Figuratively, food or sustenance in general.
- n. (b In New England, wheaten or rye bread containing an admixture of Indian meal: a variety of it is called specifically Boston brown bread.
- In Cookery, to prepare with grated bread; cover with white of eggs and bread-crumbs.
- To make broad; spread.
- n. Breadth. Also brede.
- In net-making, to form in meshes: net. Also breathe, brede.
- n. A piece of embroidery; a braid.
- To clean by rubbing with dry bread or with a bread-crust, as a drawing.
- To provide with daily bread.
Wiktionary
- n. uncountable A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals
- n. countable Any variety of bread
- n. slang money
- v. transitive to coat with breadcrumbs
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. obsolete To spread.
- n. An article of food made from flour or meal by moistening, kneading, and baking.
- n. Food; sustenance; support of life, in general.
- v. (Cookery) To cover with bread crumbs, preparatory to cooking.
WordNet 3.0
- n. informal terms for money
- n. food made from dough of flour or meal and usually raised with yeast or baking powder and then baked
- v. cover with bread crumbs
Etymologies
- From Middle English bred, breed, from Old English brēad ("fragment, bit, morsel, crumb", also "bread"), from Proto-Germanic *braudan (“cooked food, leavened bread”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerw-, *bʰrew- ("to boil, seethe"; see brew). An alternative etymology derives bread from Proto-Germanic *braudaz, *brauþaz (“broken piece, fragment”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰera- (“to split, beat, hew, struggle”) (see brittle). Perhaps a conflation of the two. Cognate with Scots breid ("bread"), Saterland Frisian Brad ("bread"), West Frisian brea ("bread"), Dutch brood ("bread"), German Brot ("bread"), Danish brød ("bread"), Swedish bröd ("bread"), Icelandic brauð ("bread"). Indoeuropean cognates include Albanian brydh ("I make crumbly, friable, soft"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old English brēad; see bhreu- in Indo-European roots. N., sense 3b, possibly from Cockney rhyming slang bread and honey. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Prepare the roasting tin by buttering a slice of bread and laying the pheasant on its side on the slice of bread***.”
“All bread is better, if naturally sweet, without the soda; but _sour bread_ you should never eat, if you desire good health.”
“You have got its corn laws repealed for it; try if you cannot get corn laws established for it dealing in a better bread; bread made of that old enchanted Arabian grain, the Sesame, which opens doors; doors not of robbers, but of Kings Treasuries.”
“If the alum be omitted, the bread has a slight yellowish grey hue -- as may be seen in the instance of what is called _home-made bread_, of private families.”
“_bread_, whereas, when other leavening agents are used, the bread is referred to as _hot bread_, or _quick bread_, as is fully explained in another Section.”
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads
“Ah!" she said, speaking in a terrible voice, "you knew, you must have known -- friends and cousins and brothers, ay, daughters too -- that bread -- _bread_!”
Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 of Popular Literature and Science
“As the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it (_the earth_) bring forth and bud (_not first bud, bear seed, and then bring forth_), that it (_the earth_) may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater (_man being the only sower of seed and eater of bread_): so shall my Word be (_the Word of”
“I have a zucchini and chocolate bread I have recently become fond of and I must say that this pumpkin bread is now going to make an appearance at my home!”
“I think the "mountain bread" is identified as Armenian, and it really is super-thin.”
“Needless to say, whole wheat/multigrain bread is more nutritious than white bread.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bread’.
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Guide to the Perplexed
Lexicon of terms set forth in Maimonides 'Guide to the Perplexed'. A fascinating exercise in theosophy and translation if one substitutes these definitions for a "revised" reading of the Old Testa...
eye, apprehend, associations, air, ruah : or ruhoth,..., affection, attribute, approach, accidents, ascending, articulated, back and 119 more...
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Sweet tooth fairy dominoes
As originally suggested on sweet tooth fairy domino:
Each person adds one word trying to create a single, potentially infinite sweet tooth fairy (please look it up if you are not familiar wit...banana, boat, house, arrest, warrant, peace, sign, post, box, clever, Hans, device and 119 more...
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IMCO - EU nomenclature
includes words of the "Prodcom list"
abaca, abdominal, abrasive, absorbent, absorber, accelerator, accessory, account book, accumulator, acebutolol, acetaldehyde, acetamide and 4515 more...
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RELI - Genesis
Protagonists and relevant words in the Book of Creation (Source: King James Bible)
Laban, circumcise, beget, Esau, Rebekah, speckle, Sodom, Pharaoh, Canaanite, Canaan, Jacob, Lot and 1286 more...
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Band or Brand?
Band names that are also common words or phrases.
genesis, who, beatles, journey, germs, sublime, doors, cars, nirvana, bangles, tool, pixies and 192 more...
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RELI - words with Biblical connotations
Words in the Bible evoking biblical stories or with special spiritual meaning. Proper names have been reduced to the minimum.
ark, judgement, holy, saint, baptism, spirit, love, eternal, altar, balsam, covenant, flood and 1115 more...
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food collection
bread, peel, pot, chorizo, Filet, olive, fill, Phyllo, dough, bake, mat, pinot and 988 more...
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vegan
vegan food list of basic vegan food or types of vegan food you've had and liked.
( food, cuisine, eating, health, vegan, vegetarian, animal rights, anti-cruelty, no meat, herbivore, s...tofu, hummus, falafel, cookie, soy, nuts, fruit, burrito, veggie burger, soy cheese, rice, pasta and 52 more...
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money
words for currency
money, cheddar, beans, cheese, cash, gwap, cream, brass, cake, bread, scratch, sugar and 41 more...
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Unfortunately Necessary Words
Words we have to use all the time, but that doesn't mean they sound good. In fact, they kind of suck. See also this list.
milk, cheese, neck, teeth, moist, dry, skin, head, feet, mouth, frankly, hair and 97 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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A Crumb Of Comfort
Types of bread & breadmaking terms. Mainly I'm looking for plain or savoury breads but I'll accept the sweet-ish ones as long as they are more bread than cake :-)
lagana, khobz, pita, foccaccia, ciabatta, bap, altamura, knead, leaven, crumpet, muffin, bagel and 202 more...
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Prosie: Lincoln's Second Inaugural Ad...
(Given Saturday, March 4, 1865, Washington, D.C.)
Fellow-Countrymen:
At this second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less occasion for an extended a...with all nations, among ourselves, a just and lastin..., cherish, achieve, to do all, for his widow and..., to care for him w..., to bind up the na..., let us strive on ..., with firmness in ..., with charity for all and 169 more...
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Two years
Okay, I admit it. I made a list of words my daughter knew when she was two years old.
bat, baba, a, abalone, about, acorn, adrienne, after, again, airplane, alison, all and 694 more...
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Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
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mandarine's Words
antepenultimate, metonymy, synecdoche, pop, kern, inherit, clique, scrumptious, macerate, murmur, kerning, veranda and 1068 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bread.

oroboros According to an NPR piece I heard today, Lester Young, the great saxophonist coined the slang usage of the word "bread" to mean money. See also, "cool" Aug 27, 2009
brobbins World above (heaven) Jul 24, 2009
chained_bear "Crust of Bread Found!" can be partially seen on this page. Jan 15, 2009
chained_bear Captured at Yorktown, "520 bags bread, (weight) 59,600 lb." Oct 29, 2007