breadwinner
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English
Etymology
From bread + winner, where to win = to earn. Compare West Frisian breawinning (“livelihood”, literally “bread-winning”), Dutch broodwinning (“livelihood”).
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈbɹɛdˌwɪnɚ/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
Noun
breadwinner (plural breadwinners)
- The primary income-earner in a household.
- 1865, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Wives and Daughters, Chapter I:
- At one side lay the little town of Hollingford, into a street of which Mr. Gibson's front door opened; and delicate columns, and little puffs of smoke were already beginning to rise from many a cottage chimney where some housewife was already up, and preparing breakfast for the bread-winner of the family.
Derived terms
Translations
primary income-earner in a household
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