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Bread is a food consisting of flour or meal that is moistened, kneaded into dough, and often fermented using yeast, and it has been a major sustenance since prehistoric times. With the right ingredients, it can be a source of complex carbohydrates and B vitamins (add whole wheat, and you increase its nutritional value). Through synecdoche, its name rose to refer to any source of food or sustenance. Reference to a path to sustenance followed in the 18th century. "I was under no necessity of seeking my bread," recounts Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Dough had already been used to refer to money in 19th-century slang and, in a natural extension, bread was served with the same meaning in the jazz and beat slang of the mid-20th century ("Dean just raced in society, eager for bread and love," writes beatnik Jack Kerouac).
Examples of bread in a Sentence
Merve Ceylan, Health, 8 Mar. 2026
Combine for Ultimate Deliciousness Place your crab rangoon filling onto the bread, top each loaf with shredded mozzarella cheese, and bake in the oven at 350° F for 10 to 15 minutes (plus one or two minutes in the broiler on high).
—Joseph Erbentraut, Better Homes & Gardens, 7 Mar. 2026
Kimberly Holland, Southern Living, 5 Mar. 2026
Unlike most crab cakes, which use bread to bind and extend the crab meat, Barnum-Dann’s are tiny pucks of 100 percent crab meat in a Meyer lemon aioli, lightly breaded on the outside and fried until golden.
—Sean Timberlake, Sacbee.com, 27 Feb. 2026
See All Example Sentences for bread
Cite this Entry
“Bread.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bread. Accessed 9 Mar. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
bread
1 of 2 nounbread
2 of 2 verb
