bread: [OE] The general Germanic word for ‘bread’ in prehistoric times was what we now know as loaf; bread probably originally meant simply ‘(piece of) food’, but as bread was among the commonest foods, the word bread gradually became more specialized, passing via ‘piece of bread’, ‘broken bread’, to simply ‘bread’. Old English brēad and related Germanic forms such as German brot and Swedish bröd point to a hypothetical Germanic precursor *brautham, but the word’s ultimate origins are unknown. Some etymologists have derived it from Indo- European *bhreu-, source of English brew.
bread (n.)
Old English bread "bit, crumb, morsel; bread," cognate with Old Norse brauð, Danish brød, Old Frisian brad, Middle Dutch brot, Dutch brood, German Brot. According to one theory [Watkins, etc.] from Proto-Germanic *brautham, which would be from the root of brew (v.) and refer to the leavening.
But OED argues at some length for the basic sense being not "cooked food" but "piece of food," and the Old English word deriving from a Proto-Germanic *braudsmon- "fragments, bits" (cognate with Old High German brosma "crumb," Old English breotan "to break in pieces") and being related to the root of break (v.). It cites Slovenian kruh "bread," literally "a piece."
Either way, by c. 1200 it had replaced the usual Old English word for "bread," which was hlaf (see loaf (n.)). Slang meaning "money" dates from 1940s, but compare breadwinner. Bread-and-butter in the figurative sense of "basic needs" is from 1732. Bread and circuses (1914) is from Latin, in reference to food and entertainment provided by governments to keep the populace happy. "Duas tantum res anxius optat, Panem et circenses" [Juvenal, Sat. x.80].
bread (v.)
"to dress with bread crumbs," 1727, from bread (n.). Related: Breaded; breading.
双语例句
1. For her, books were as necessary to life as bread.
对她来说，书就像面包一样，是生活必需品。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Try to eat at least four slices of bread a day.
每天尽量至少吃4片面包。
来自柯林斯例句
3. The government increased prices on several basic commodities like bread and meat.
政府提高了面包、肉类等几种基本商品的价格。
来自柯林斯例句
4. The crew of the ship gave them nothing but bread to eat.
船上的工作人员除了面包什么也不给他们吃。
来自柯林斯例句
5. There is more fibre in wholemeal bread than in white bread.
