BREAD AND BUTTER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bread and butter mean? 

• BREAD AND BUTTER (noun)
  The noun BREAD AND BUTTER has 1 sense:

1. the financial means whereby one lives

  Familiarity information: BREAD AND BUTTER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BREAD AND BUTTER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The financial means whereby one lives

Classified under:

Nouns denoting possession and transfer of possession

Synonyms:

bread and butter; keep; livelihood; living; support; sustenance

Context example:

he could no longer earn his own livelihood

Hypernyms ("bread and butter" is a kind of...):

resource (available source of wealth; a new or reserve supply that can be drawn upon when needed)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bread and butter"):

amenities; comforts; conveniences; creature comforts (things that make you comfortable and at ease)

maintenance (means of maintenance of a family or group)

meal ticket (a source of income or livelihood)

subsistence (minimal (or marginal) resources for subsisting)

 Context examples 

So did everyone else, even 'Croaker' as the girls called the old lady, and the unfortunate dinner ended gaily, with bread and butter, olives and fun.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

No. She might whistle for her bread and butter till she died of Air.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"Barbara," said she, "can you not bring a little more bread and butter? There is not enough for three."

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And the little gnats of men sting his memory when they get their very bread and butter from the technical application of his ideas.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She had been into the kitchen, she said, to hurry Sally and help make the toast, and spread the bread and butter, or she did not know when they should have got tea, and she was sure her sister must want something after her journey.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of exactly how little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice of mutton for dinner, as well as to see exhibitions of new caps and new workbags for her mother and herself; and Jane's offences rose again.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

There's bread and butter and jam, at any rate.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

When I had money enough, I used to get half-a-pint of ready-made coffee and a slice of bread and butter.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

"No, I'm sure I can't. How much has happened since I said that! It seems a year ago," answered Meg, who was in a blissful dream lifted far above such common things as bread and butter.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

She sat in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the walls, marked by her father's head, to the table cut and notched by her brothers, where stood the tea-board never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped in streaks, the milk a mixture of motes floating in thin blue, and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy than even Rebecca's hands had first produced it.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)