breadbasket
noun
Did you know?
Breadbasket has been used as slang in English since at least the mid-1700s. (It has been used even longer to mean literally a basket for holding bread.) It can refer to the stomach as an actual digestive organ ("his breadbasket rumbled with hunger"), but these days it's more commonly applied to the general stomach area ("rested her hands on her breadbasket"). No one is quite sure of the exact origins of the use, but it’s likely that there’s some connection between the basket used to hold bread and the basket where the bread ends up after a person eats it. Breadbasket has also come to refer to an area that supplies an important amount of grain ("the breadbasket of the country").
Examples of breadbasket in a Sentence
Umair Irfan, Wired News, 28 June 2025
The region, Hultgren noted, is both one of the world’s richest breadbaskets and one of its most endangered.
—Saul Elbein, The Hill, 18 June 2025
Self-defense group attacks agents The tragedy in the Artibonite region, considered the country’s breadbasket, is yet another example of Haiti’s descent into chaos and the degree to which impunity and barbarity rein as armed gangs tighten their grip.
—Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, 3 June 2025
America’s dream of securing dominance in one of the world’s breadbaskets, home to vast resources and human capital at the expense of Europe and Russia, has been deftly parried.
—Wesley Alexander Hill, Forbes.com, 7 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for breadbasket
Cite this Entry
“Breadbasket.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/breadbasket. Accessed 13 Jul. 2025.
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breadbasket
noun
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