Word.ws English Dictionary

bread line

bread line is the alternative spelling of breadline.

Meaning of breadline

Noun

breadline (plural breadlines)

  1. (US) A line of people waiting to receive food from a charity.
    • I do not think anyone of us can walk by a breadline and see even the most unkempt and raggedy man in the line without saying to himself, "There but for the grace of God."1975, Alex Baskin, The Unemployed (1930-1932), page 4
  2. (UK, figuratively) The lowest income level at which one's most basic necessities of survival are met; poverty line or subsistence level.
    • Every day brings new worries about falling below the breadline.

Forms of bread line

pluralbread lines

Questions about bread line

What is bread line the alternative spelling of?
Bread line is the alternative spelling of breadline.

Words near bread line in the dictionary

  1. bread heel
  2. bread jellies
  3. bread jelly
  4. bread knife
  5. bread knives
  6. bread line
  7. bread lines
  8. bread machine
  9. bread machines
  10. bread maker
  11. bread makers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: bread line (page history and authors); breadline (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.

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