Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a bank.

2000

(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad.

an individual who is interested primarily in acquiring money.

1969		Gandalf’s Garden 6 n.d. 10: bread-head: One who spends the majority of his mental activity on making money.
1970		Listener 20 Aug. n.p.: They are what the Underground would call breadheads [KH].
1983		K. Hudson Dict. of Teenage Revolution 27: Breadhead. A person who pretends to have adopted an Alternative Lifestyle, but who in fact devotes much of his energy to the mainline pursuit of making money.
2000		Indep. Rev. 25 Feb. 4: In yesterday’s FT – a number of leading ‘bread heads’ signed up to a statement.
2004		S. Gupta Hacking in the Computer World 57: Anyone motivated by greed for mere money (as opposed to the greed for power, knowledge and status) is swiftly written-off as a narrowminded breadhead.
2012		L. Cody Gimme More n.p.: ‘She’s still a fullon breadhead,’ Teddy said. ‘You know she’s always fighting the labels to give her half Jack’s royalties?’.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 246: Seems tae me that he’s a breadhead that just husnae goat your vision.

(orig. US black) a working man.

1982		in M. Starks Cocaine Fiends 108/1: My old man was a bread-stasher all his life; He never got fat. He wound up with a used car, a seventeen- inch screen. And arthritis.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad 20: Bread stasher Working stiff, wage slave, someone who saves for a rainy day.

(US Und.) of a prostitute, to make some money.

2000

W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 594: Shake it down; break some bread, you little cocksucker fuckin’ bitchmama shitass.

(drugs) money obtained by blood donation.

1971

E.E. Landy Underground Dict. (1972).

a homosexual couple; thus bread and bread don’t make a sandwich, the response given by one effeminate gay man when partnered with another.

1986–7

Maledicta IX 194: This article and series devoted to sexual slang would be incomplete without some notice of catch phrases, both British and American: […] bread and bread don’t make a sandwich (reply of a femme gay offered another one; also I’m a pouf, not a lesbian).

see separate entries.

see separate entry.

see bread and butter n.¹

bread with no butter, jam or other additive.

1880		N&Q 6 Ser. II 10 July 36/2: To one asking what he can have to eat, it is considered very clever to say, ‘Bread and pullet.’ ‘Let’s have it, then,’ says he. A big lump of bread is set on the table and he asks for the chicken. [...] ‘Why here’s nought but bread.’ ‘Well, pull it, and you’ll have “bread and pull it ”’.
1894		G.F. Northall Folk-Phrases of Four Counties 11: Bread and pull it (pullet).
1900		Chelmsford Chron. 9 Feb. 8/3: Dear Mother and father [...] How did you spend Christmas? I enjoyed mine immensely — dry bread and pullet.
1913		Leighton Buzzard Obs. 10 Oct. 6/2: There were times in my home when we had not any of these to spread on our bread [...] It wa s a case of ‘bread and pullet’ for breakfast.
1915		Beds. Times 24 Dec. 6/1: [He] has been a convert to margarine and is of the opinion that people who cannot eat it ought to be fed on bread and pullet.
1940		Western Gaz. 29 Nov. 5/3: I suppose most readers will have heard the old West Country saying of the bread and pullet lunch. You take your piece of bread and pull it!

1. a piece of bread barely covered in a thin layer or scrape of butter or meat dripping.

1844		Littell’s Spirit of Mags & Jrnls 4 443/1: A small lump of butter was formally melted in a cup of hot water; and this oleaginous fluid was simply painted [...] over the upper surface of the slices of bread. This plan leaves the old ‘bread and scrape’ system entirely in the rear.
[1848		C. Brontë J. Eyre Ch. vii: A double ration of bread [...] with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter].
1864		G.A. Sala Quite Alone I 233: Cake and wine existed no more in her allure; she was suggestive only of bread and scrape and sky-blue.
1873		R. Broughton Nancy III 213: Some people have their happiness thinly spread over their whole lives, like bread and scrape!
1919		Sheffield Eve. Teleg. 27 Mar. 1/7: [advert] Children must have fat. They cannot thrive on ‘Bread and Scrape’.
1939		Sheffield Eve. Teleg. 7 Dec. n.p.: [advert] No bread and scrape for your family in this war!
1968		Orlando Sentinel (FL) 2 May 23/4: English slang [...] Bread and scrape is bread and butter.
1974		D. Ireland Burn 76: Bit of bread and scrape’ll do me.
1982		N. Keesing Lily on the Dustbin 119: Even ‘bread and scrape’ (or scratch) once usually a meagre film of dripping, but now more often ‘marge’, is ‘yummy’ if you’re hungry.
1993		(con. 1918) P. Barker Eye in the Door 93: They were glad of a bit of bread and scrape before the war.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 34: bread and scrape/bread and spit Very little to eat.

2. used fig. to implied a limited or second-rate portion.

1931

Western Gaz. 21 Aug. 10/7: In much chamber music the first violin has bread and jam and the others only bread and scrape.

(US) an inadequate meal.

1976		Yankee 56: Dear Oracle, A friend of mine told me that [...] whenever he asked his mother what they were having for dinner, she always answered, ‘bread and skip.’ He never found out what that meant. Do you know? Answer: No second course [DARE].
1981		NADS letters n.p.: Bread and skip: ‘bread and molasses, and skip the molasses,’ or whatever the sweet stuff mout [sic] be [DARE].

a light meal, e.g. a loaf of bread and (something else) with it.

1898

(ref. to mid-19C) Omaha World-Herald and Nebraska Editors’ Day 24 Aug. on Omaha Public Library 🌐 The settlers of those days may have had to live largely on ‘bread and with it’, but no heroes have greater claims on the world’s history than the pioneers of Nebraska.

1. the stomach.

1831		Navy at Home II 311: The purser [...] had been hit in the bread bag.
1834		W.N. Glascock Naval Sketch-book II 179: My eye, purser, you’ve had a southerly wind in the bread-bag!
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 11: Bread Bag, the stomach.

2. (N.Z. prison) a plastic bread bag used as a makeshift condom, thus a sexual assault carried out when using such a substitute.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 28/2: bread bag, the n. a sexual assault carried out upon a fellow prison inmate. [a plastic bread bag is sometimes used as a makeshift condom during such an attack.

(orig. boxing) the stomach; thus breadbasketer, a blow to the stomach.

1753		Foote Englishman in Paris in Works (1799) I 36: Another came up to second time, but I let drive at the monk, made the soup-maigre rumble in his bread-basket, and laid him sprawling.
1765		Scots Mag. 2 Sept.28/2: There may be little minds that enjoy these squabbles with as much satisfaction as they do the alternate strokes on the bread-baskets of two bruisers.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 165: Then threw his stick, which with a thump / On his bread-basket hit him plump.
1781		Hicky’s Bengal Gaz. 3-10 Nov. n.p.: He struck the seller such a Derier on the bread basket, as knoked [sic] him [...] sprawling.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: bread basket, the stomach; a term used by boxers. I took him a punch in his bread basket; i.e. I gave him a blow in the stomach.
1794		Sporting Mag. Oct. V 5/2: As I brushed by [...] this elbow went plump into madam’s bread-basket.
1802		M. & R. Lovell Edgeworth Essays on Irish Bulls 130: I out’s with my bread-earner, and gives it him up to Lamprey in the bread basket.
1811		J. Poole Hamlet Travestie III vi: I had him there in the bread-basket.
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 18: What with clouts on the nob, / Home hits in the bread-basket, clicks in the gob.
1822		Royal Cornwall Gaz. 27 Apr. 3/1: In the language of the Fancy, I have given him a breadbasketter, i.e. have floored him.
1823		Devizes & Wilts. Gaz. 21 Aug. 3/4: Sampson stopped a well-meant touch on the bread basket.
1828		N.Y. Enquirer 15 Apr. 2/4: The Pink had got his other peeper closed; he then stood no chance; and after a severe blow in the bread-basket, gave in.
1834		Marryat Peter Simple (1911) 70: Now that I’ve cured you, you’ll be tucking all that into your own little breadbasket.
1834		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 6 n.p.: Sam [...] received a touch on the bread basket.
1835		Sydney Herald 18 June 4/2: I’ll be spiflicated if I wern’t laughing like an undertaker in a black job, till my bread basket ached.
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England I 268: I gave him a sly poke in the bread basket.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 Oct. 2/5: Scotchie planting his left on Drake’s breadbasket, which floored him.
1853		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 118: He told Verdant, that his claret had been repeatedly tapped, his bread-basket walked into [...] and his whole person put in chancery.
1854		N.Y. Clipper 21 Jan. 3/2: A ranting preacher [...] heard no other conversation [...] but ‘bread basket,’ ‘peeper,’ ‘first knock down,’ ‘stinger in the eye,’ ‘closed his window,’ &c .
1855		(con. 1824) Fights for the Championship 70: Langan had but one aim — Spring’s breadbasket.
1857		Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 7 Feb. 4/1: Sandy delivered a heavy blow on Burke’s bread-basket.
1858		Bell’s Life in Sydney 17 July 3/2: I [...] delivers my left in the bread panier.
1860		Bell’s Life in Sydney 16 June 4/3: So long as its proceedings are to be connected with the vulgar slang of ‘tater-traps,’ ‘mawleys,’ and ‘bread-baskets,’ it will be impossible for gentlemen to have anything to do with it [i.e. prize-fighting].
1866		Night Side of N.Y. 80: His nose is a ‘conk,’ his chest a ‘bread-basket,’ his mouth a ‘potato-trap’.
1866		Letters by an Odd Boy 102: I butted at him, caught him in what I have since ascertained to be the bread-basket, and knocked him clean over.
1870		Perrysburg Jrnl (OH) 6 May 4/1: A grotesque fancy has named food ‘belly timber’ and its receptacle the ‘bread-basket’.
1878–9		A. Garcia Tough Trip Through Paradise (1977) 75: I [...] proudly entered the arena of pugilism by landing several underhand swings in his bread basket.
1886		Sporting Times 27 Feb. 5/4: The Diplomat led off [...] fetching his own second a fearful slog in the bread basket.
1889		H. O’Reilly Fifty Years on the Trail 169: I planted him one in the ‘bread basket’.
1890		Dead Bird (Sydney) 20 Sept. 2/1: Mrs. F. jabbed him in the bread basket with a box-iron.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) II 272: The sensitive sympathy existing [...] between the bread-basket [...] and the digital organs.
1899		H.E. Hamblen Yarns of Bucko Mate 102: So, swinging the old horse-pistol round my head, I [...] threw it with all my might. It hit him fairly in the bread basket.
1904		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 24 July. 1/4: ‘I’se takin’ a packet o’ Epsom salts three times a day, an’ feel very holler like about. ther bread-basket’.
1906		C. M’Govern Sarjint Larry an’ Frinds 35: I swear be de saints if yez don’t be gettin’ a wiggle on ye Oi’ll be afhter jabbing me fist in de middle of yer bread-basket.
1907		D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 24 Aug. 12/1: ‘[B]lowed if I don’t stick this knife in your bread-basket’.
1908		Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Dec. 1/7: In round six [Tommy] Burns pummelled his man on the breadbasket. [Jack] Johnson was soon in the ascendant again.
1911		‘Sing Sing No. 57,700’ My View on Books in N.Y. Times Mag. 21 May 7/5: We’d like to have been able to hand him a few swift swats in the breadbasket.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Dec. 41/2: William hasn’t landed the Australian trapper one in the breadbasket, after all.
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 9: Sick in your breadbasket, Fleming said, because your face looks white.
1916		P. MacGill The Great Push 114: ‘I’ll make yer laugh,’ I said to ’im, and shoved my bayonet at ’is bread basket.
1920		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 26 Oct. [synd. col.] They yelled such epithets [...] as these: ‘Poke him in the bread basket, you frog eater!’ ‘Slap him in the slats.’.
1930		G. Milburn ‘De Night Before Christmas’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 259: Poor Slim and Canary and Idaho Dick / With breadbaskets empty was feelin’ some sick.
1937		C. Drew ‘Abdul’ in Bulletin 29 Dec. 8/2: He butted a bloke in the breadbasket the other day, and the bloke has been winded ever since.
1939		J. Campbell Babe is Wise 299: I’m one of those fleshy blighters who believe in lining the old bread-basket at regular intervals.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 18: We were given the bum’s rush [...] our breadbaskets empty and our nerves jumping.
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 175: His stomach is his ‘breadbasket’.
1968		G. Cuomo Among Thieves 9: What’smatter? The old breadbasket getting empty?
1971		(con. 1930s) D. Wells Night People 93: The waiter would be standing in the corner digging me, holding his bread-basket (stomach) and frowning.
1983		C. Heath A-Team 2 (1984) 74: Then maybe you pump a couple rounds into my breadbasket.
1995		A. Higgins Donkey’s Years 149: Whereupon the Razz [...] laid the fellow out with an almighty haymaker in the breadbasket.

1. (US) the stomach.

1855		Broadway Belle (NY) 15 Jan. n.p.: The bandit [...] palnts a stunner in the tyrant’s bread-box.
1919		Twelfth Infantry 1798-1919 115: [M]any a recruit has hitched his belt and squared his shoulders [...] only to come out needing another hitch in the region of the bread-box .
1936		Will Weldon ‘Blues Everywhere I Go’ 🎵 And the blues in my bread box / Because my bread is done gone stale / Well well so I’ve blues in my meal barrel.

2. in fig. use.

1915

Chesterfield Advertiser 2 Dec. 2/1: Another bill preventing the advertising of whisky in the newspapers [...] hits the newspapers in the breadbox.

3. (US Und.) a safe that can be opened easily.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

4. the vagina.

1968		K. Brasselle Cannibals 80: How the hell can you really swing if you’re wondering whether the last thing in her bread box might have been an eight-inch chocolate eclair ... with mold.
1986		‘Dee Snyde’ Money makes the Lust Go ’Round n.p.: The stiff snake he so playfully stroked [...] ‘Just the right size and shape to jam into this hot little breadbox of mine’.

5. (US) a small car.

2001

J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 34: It’s gonna be work getting that ass in this bread box.

(US) a tooth.

1965–70

in DARE I 369/1: Bread cutter n Also bread cracker, – grinder joc A tooth.

(Irish) a knife, as used by a shoeblack.

1802

M. & R. Lovell Edgeworth Essays on Irish Bulls 130: I out’s with my bread-earner, and gives it him up to Lamprey in the bread basket.

(US black) a ten-dollar bill.

1944

D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 52: A five-spot is an eggplant; and when you double an eggplant it’s a breadfruit.

(W.I., Bdos) a very poor person.

1970		F. Collymore Notes for Gloss. of Barbadian Dial. 21: Breadfruit-swopper. A cheap, ordinary sort of person.
c.2003		Alex PummaTheGnome 🌐 Favorite-Insults: Flipwreck / breadfruit swapper / double bag and stumper.

a tooth.

1823

[C.M. Westmacott] Mammon in London 1 262: Flutter [...] complained of the cold, and made a sad rattling of his ‘bread graters’ as we got out of our rattler.

1. (US) the hands.

1846		Portage Sentinel (Ravenna, OH) 7 Jan. 1/1: ‘Hold on,’ says I, and Hetty let in her breadhooks like the gripe of death to a dead nigger.
1875		Spirit of the Age (Woodstock, VT) 2 June 3/3: Woe! to the bridegroom if neighbor Pitkin gets his bread-hooks fastened on him.
1881		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 6 Nov. 4/4: Officer Brown [...] presenting his ‘bull dog’, ordered the man to throw up his ‘bread hooks’.
1890		Salt Lake Herald (UT) 1 June 14/3: Before Goli could get his bread hooks on Dave the thing was over.
1908		Spokane Press (WA) 24 Dec. 4/6: You’ve heard the song Sousa wrote: / ‘The Hands Across the Sea.’ / He must have meant Big Wilhelm’s mitt / And the bread hooks of Tedd-ee.
1912		D. Lowrie My Life in Prison 141: Let’s see y’r breadhooks, kid.
1920		Bisbee Dly Rev. 17 Nov. 5/3: Mr Celmars rudely jammed one of his bread hooks in the general direction of the Dynamite boy’s face.
1966–8		in DARE.
2001		(con. 1950s) ‘Sl. of the 1950s’ ASD Online (Anchorage, AK) 🌐 bread hooks hands.

2. a fingernail.

1961

(con. 1945) G. Forbes Goodbye to Some (1963) 124: Barker has again grown an inch-long nail [...] So he delivers a few indefinite threats and sends him off to clean his arms and cut off the ‘breadhook’.

the stomach.

1762

Smollett Sir Launcelot Greaves II 89: He ordered the waiter [...] to bear a hand, ship his oars, mind his helm, and bring alongside a short allowance of brandy or grog, that he might cant a slug into his bread-room.

(Scot., Glasgow/Irish/US) a child.

1935		(con. 1920s) McArthur & Long No Mean City 4: ‘There’ll be nae more bread-snappers if I can help it,’ he resolved grimly. ‘Kids are all very well for a woman, but they’re a bliddy nuisance to a man.’.
1936		K. Mackenzie Living Rough 154: I remembered the people upstairs had five bread-snappers.
1983		C. Macafee Glasgow 103: So that Mither cud be here tae greet ye instead of helpin’ to bring another breadsnapper intae the world.
1984		Joint 484: BREAD SNATCHERS. An affectionate term describing a prisoner's children or the children of his friends.
1997		A. Roberts Rasherhouse 23: ‘Ahh, a bread snapper, ah God help ya. How old?’ [...] ‘Six months.’ .
2002		at www.golfonline.com 4 Sept. 🌐 At least, it might be [enjoyable] if there wasn’t a gaggle of little breadsnatchers waddling along behind. What you actually get is a cramped flying RV, filled with other people’s snot-ridden whining brats (and your own).
2011		C.J. Wilson Double Mountain Crossing [ebook] I ain’t taken no lip from a woman since I was a bread snapper, and I ain’t about to start now.

(US) the hands.

1966–8

in DARE.

(US) the mouth.

1855		F. Colburn Adams Our World 🌐 Shut up yer black bread-trap, and don’t go makin a fuss.
1865		V.C. Giles Rags and Hope in Lasswell (1961) 99: Oh, close your bread trap and give us a rest.
1897		Cambridge Rev. 25 Feb. 254/1: [He] plantecd left and right with good effect on the bread-trap and peepers.
1959		A. Kivi Seven Brothers 339: Let Timo keep his bread-trap shut.
1968		(con. 1928) S. Gore Holy Smoke 47: Around the edge of his breadtrap.

(Aus. und.) a police or prison van used to transport prisoners.

1998

P. Doyle (con. late 1950s) Amaze Your Friends (2019) 110: The breadvan would take us out to Long Bay Jail.

1. (UK Und.) a knife.

1854

G.J. Whyte-Melville General Bounce (1891) 325: If I have to whip out the ‘breadwinner,’ I’ll be allowed something handsome over and above, see if I won’t.

2. the vagina [viewed as a commercial commodity].

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

in trouble, in a difficult situation.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ A Dict. of the Turf, The Ring, The Chase, etc.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 313/1: bread, I am in bad bread, je suis dans une mauvaise situation.