Word.ws English Dictionary

on the breadline

on the breadline prepositional phrase: in a situation of extreme poverty; relying on food donations or having only enough to survive.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) In a situation of extreme poverty; relying on food donations or having only enough to survive.
    • She wasn't on the breadline exactly, but she didn't have an awful lot of spare cash to throw around, and she always, always lived within her means.2021 February 25, Lilac Mills, Sunset on the Square: Escape on a Spanish Holiday with this Heartwarming Love Story, London: Canelo, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN
    • This life continuously trapped on the breadline was not what I wanted, not forever.2012 March 17, Russell M. Nash, Yellow Fever: An Englishman Falls Under the Spell of the Far East, Memoirs Publishing, →ISBN, →ISBN

Examples of on the breadline in a sentence

  • Anyone would think he was on the breadline too.2014 January 16, Veronica Henry, Love on the Rocks, London: Orion, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN:
  • With capital of about £16,000 I wasn't exactly on the breadline.2015, J. R. L. Anderson, Death on the Rocks: A Classic English Murder Mystery, London: Bonnier Publishing Fiction, →ISBN, →OCLC, →ISBN:
  • There were times where money was tight and we probably were on the breadline, but I still never really wanted for anything.2012 September 20, Kevin Twaddle, Life on the Line: How to Lose a Million and So Much More, Edinburgh: Black & White Publishing, →ISBN...
  • It is ridiculous to put our own people on the breadline by reducing their spending power by an enormous sum to save very much less in overseas funds.1969, New Zealand. Parliament. House of Representatives, Parliamentary Debates, page 4044:

Forms of on the breadline

alternative formbelow the breadline

Questions about on the breadline

What does on the breadline mean?
On the breadline means in a situation of extreme poverty; relying on food donations or having only enough to survive.
How do you use on the breadline in a sentence?
Anyone would think he was on the breadline too.
What part of speech is on the breadline?
On the breadline is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on the breadline in the dictionary

  1. on the book
  2. on the books
  3. on the bounce
  4. on the bow
  5. on the brain
  6. on the breadline
  7. on the brew
  8. on the brink
  9. on the brink of
  10. on the bubble
  11. on the bum

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on the 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: “on the breadline.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/on_the_breadline. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.