bread

• (General Australian) enPR: brĕd, IPA^(key): /bɹɛd/ or IPA^(key): /bɹeːd/
• (UK, US) enPR: brĕd, IPA^(key): /bɹɛd/

• Audio (UK)

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• Audio (US)

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• Rhymes: -ɛd
• Homophone: bred

From Middle English bred, breed, from Old English brēad (“fragment, bit, morsel, crumb", also "bread”), from Proto-Germanic *braudą (“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 and Norwegian brød (“bread”), Swedish bröd (“bread”), Icelandic brauð (“bread”), Albanian brydh (“I make crumbly, friable, soft”), Latin frustum (“crumb”).

bread (countable and uncountable, plural breads)

1. (uncountable) A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals.
   • 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 8, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:

     Philander went into the next room […] and came back with a salt mackerel that dripped brine like a rainstorm. Then he put the coffee pot on the stove and rummaged out a loaf of dry bread and some hardtack.

   • 1981, Shel Silverstein, “How Many, How Much”, A Light in the Attic, Harper & Row:

     How many slices in a^[sic] bread? / Depends how thin you cut it.

2. (countable) Any variety of bread.
3. (slang, US) Money.
   • 2005, Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, and Willie Hutchinson (lyrics), “Stay Fly”, in Most Known Unknown‎, Sony BMG, performed by Three 6 Mafia (featuring Young Buck, 8 Ball, and MJG):

     Tastes like fruit when you hit it; got to have bread to get it.

4. Food; sustenance; support of life, in general.
   • Bible, Matthew vi. 11

     Give us this day our daily bread.

• loaf, slice, piece, hunk are some of the words used to count bread.

• (slang: money): dough, folding stuff, lolly, paper, spondulicks, wonga

• Sranan Tongo: brede

bread (third-person singular simple present breads, present participle breading, simple past and past participle breaded)

1. (transitive) to coat with breadcrumbs

• breaded (adjective)
• breading (noun)

• loaf

From Middle English brede, from Old English brǣdu (“breadth, width, extent”), from Proto-Germanic *braidį̄ (“breadth”). Cognate with Scots brede, breid (“breadth”), Dutch breedte (“breadth”), German Breite (“breadth”), Swedish bredd (“breadth”), Icelandic breidd (“breadth”).

bread (plural breads)

1. (obsolete or Britain dialectal, Scotland) Breadth.

• waybread

From Middle English breden, from Old English brǣdan (“to make broad, extend, spread, stretch out; be extended, rise, grow”), from Proto-Germanic *braidijaną (“to make broad, broaden”).

bread (third-person singular simple present breads, present participle breading, simple past and past participle breaded)

1. (transitive, dialectal) To make broad; spread.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Ray to this entry?)

Variant of braid, from Middle English breden, from Old English brēdan, breġdan (“to braid”).

• breathe, brede

bread (third-person singular simple present breads, present participle breading, simple past and past participle breaded)

1. (transitive) To form in meshes; net.

bread (plural breads)

1. A piece of embroidery; a braid.

• Beard, Breda, Debar, Debra, ardeb, bared, beard, debar

• brēod

From Proto-Germanic *braudą, whence also Old Frisian brād (English brea), Old Saxon brōd (German Low German Broot, Brot), Dutch brood, Old High German brōt (German Brot), Old Norse and Icelandic brauð (Swedish bröd).

• IPA^(key): /bræːɑ̯d/

brēad n (nominative plural brēadru)

1. (rare, chiefly Anglian) bit, piece, morsel, crumb
2. (rare, chiefly Anglian) bread (foodstuff)

• (bread): hlāf

• bēobrēad
• picgbrēad

• Middle English: brede, breed
  • English: bread
  • Scots: brede, breid, braid

bread

1. (Spain) Informal second-person plural (vosotros or vosotras) affirmative imperative form of brear.