Word.ws English Dictionary

bread

/bɹɛd/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Early/brɛd/

bread noun: a foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals.

bread: a foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals
Image: Klaus Höpfner, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

bread (countable and uncountable, plural breads)

  1. A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals.
    1. (especially) Such foodstuff that is not difficult to chew, being not extremely hard, dense, and dry.
      • We made sandwiches with the bread we bought from the bakery.
      • My mother used to send me for the bread.
  2. Food; sustenance; support of life, in general.
    • Give us this day our daily bread.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 4:11
    Synonyms:
    staff of life
  3. (countable) Any variety of bread.
    • Some breads are harder and drier than others.
  4. (Cockney, US, slang) Money.
    • Maybe somebody would see him and recognize him, maybe one of the guys would lay enough bread on him for a meal or at least subway fare.1962, James Baldwin, Another Country, New York, N. Y.: The Dial Press, published January 1963, pages 3–4
    • […] save up all your bread, and fly Trans-Love Airways to San Francisco, USA.1967, “San Franciscan Nights”, in Winds of Change, performed by Eric Burdon and The Animals

Verb (1)

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

  1. (transitive) To coat with breadcrumbs.
    • breaded fish

Noun (2)

bread (plural breads)

  1. (Scotland, UK, dialectal, obsolete) Breadth.

Verb (2)

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

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

Noun (3)

bread (plural breads)

  1. A piece of embroidery; a braid.

bread meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

bread in Hindi

baked dough made from cereals
रोटी roṭī, नान nān, ब्रेड breḍ

bread in Tamil

baked dough made from cereals
ரொட்டி roṭṭi, பிரெட் pireṭ

bread in Marathi

baked dough made from cereals
रोटी roṭī, भाकरी bhākrī, पाव pāv, ब्रेड breḍ

bread in Urdu

baked dough made from cereals
روٹی roṭī, نان nān
More languagesFewer languages
bread in Bengali
রুটি ruṭi, পাঁউরুটি pãuruṭi, লোফ lōph, ফুলুস phulus
bread in Telugu
బ్రెడ్ breḍ, బ్రెడ్డు breḍḍu, రొట్టె roṭṭe
bread in Malayalam
റൊട്ടി ṟoṭṭi, അപൂപം apūpaṁ
bread in Kannada
ಬ್ರೆಡ್ breḍ, ರೊಟ್ಟಿ roṭṭi
bread in Punjabi
ਰੋਟੀ roṭī, روٹی pnb
bread in Gujarati
રોટલી roṭlī
bread in Odia
ରୁଟି ruṭi
bread in Sanskrit
रोटी roṭī
bread in Sinhala
පාන් pān
bread in Nepali
रोटी roṭī
bread in Pashto
ډوډۍ ḍoḍëy
bread in Tagalog
tinapay
bread in Arabic
خُبْز ḵubz, عيش ʕēš, خُبز ḵubuz, خبز ḵobz
bread in Malay
roti
bread in Indonesian
roti
bread in Persian
نَان nān, نان nân, نون nun, چُرَک čorak
bread in Thai
ขนมปัง kà-nǒm-bpang, ปัง bpang
bread in Vietnamese
bánh mì, bánh mỳ, bánh tây, bột
bread in Myanmar
ပေါင်မုန့် paungmun.

Examples of bread in a sentence

  • Then he put the coffee pot on the stove and rummaged out a loaf of dry bread and some hardtack.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter VIII, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
  • And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar / And say, "Man, what are you doing here?"1973, Billy Joel, “Piano Man”, Billy Joel (music), performed by Billy Joel:
  • Hey, baby, I don't care if the motherfucker's growing hair just so long as we get our bread.2000, Darren Aronofsky, Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream, spoken by Tyrone:
  • Tastes like fruit when you hit it; got to have bread to get it.2005, “Stay Fly”, in Jordan Houston, Darnell Carlton, Paul Beauregard, Premro Smith, Marlon Goodwin, David Brown, Willie Hutchinson...

All 40 example sentences with bread

Synonyms of bread

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of bread

Forms of bread

Noun
pluralbreads
alternative form (obsolete)breade
Verb
third-person singular presentbreads
present participlebreading
past participlebreaded
pastbreaded
alternative formbreathe
alternative formbrede

Plural of bread: breads

Origin of bread

From Middle English bred, breed, from Old English brēad (“fragment, bit, morsel, crumb", also "bread”), from Proto-West Germanic *braud, from Proto-Germanic *braudą (“bread”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerw-, *bʰrewh₁- (“to boil; to brew”), from *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”). Alternatively, 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. Possibly a doublet of broa. Cognates Cognate with Scots breid (“bread”), Yola breed (“bread”), North Frisian bruad, Bruar, brüüdj (“bread”), Saterland Frisian Brood (“bread”), West Frisian brea (“bread”), Alemannic German brot, broud, bruat, bròt, bröt (“bread”), Cimbrian proat, pròat (“bread”), Dutch brood (“bread”), German Brot (“bread”), German Low German Brod, Brood, Broot, Brot, Bräot (“bread”), Limburgish broed (“bread”), Luxembourgish Brout (“bread”), Mòcheno proat (“bread”), Vilamovian brūt (“bread; loaf”), Yiddish ברויט (broyt, “bread”), Danish and Norwegian Bokmål brød (“bread”), Elfdalian broð (“bread”), Faroese breyð (“bread”), Icelandic brauð (“bread”), Norn brau, brow (“bread”), Norwegian Nynorsk braud...

From Middle English brede (“breadth, width, extent”), 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”).

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

Words formed from bread

Phrases with bread

174 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with bread

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about bread

What does bread mean?
Bread means a foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals.
What is bread in Hindi?
Bread in Hindi is रोटी (roṭī), नान (nān), ब्रेड (breḍ). See Bread meaning in Hindi.
How do you use bread in a sentence?
Then he put the coffee pot on the stove and rummaged out a loaf of dry bread and some hardtack.
What part of speech is bread?
Bread can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce bread?
Bread is pronounced /brɛd/ (Early).
What is the plural of bread?
The plural of bread is breads.

Words near bread in the dictionary

  1. breachings
  2. breachless
  3. breachway
  4. breachways
  5. breachy
  6. bread
  7. bread and butter
  8. bread and butter pudding
  9. bread and butter puddings
  10. bread and cheese
  11. bread and circuses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bread (page history and authors); ରୁଟି (Odia) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-bread.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-bread.wav.

Cite this entry: “bread.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bread. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.