n. 1. 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. 2. a. Food in general, regarded as necessary for sustaining life: "If bread is the first necessity of life, recreation is a close second" (Edward Bellamy). b. Something that nourishes; sustenance: "My bread shall be the anguish of my mind" (Edmund Spenser). 3. a. Means of support; livelihood: earn one's bread. b. Slang Money. tr.v. bread·ed, bread·ing, breads To coat with bread crumbs, as before cooking: breaded the fish fillets. [Middle English, from Old English brēad; see bhreu- in the Appendix of Indo-European roots. N., sense 3b, possibly from Cockney rhyming slang bread and honey.] |
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