bread and butter, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

bread and butter n.¹

also bread and dripping

[the foodstuffs as staples]

1. business.

1728		Swift ‘Dialogue between Mad Mullinix and Timothy’ in Works VII (1801) 402: I own, ’tis not my bread and butter; / But prithee, Tim, why all this clutter?
1833		A. Greene Life and Adventures of Dr Dodimus Duckworth I 151: ‘She [mother] says I have a nateral turn that way; and that I was born to be a doctor.’ ‘Your mother’s a fool.’ ‘Well, that’s none of my bread and butter.’.

2. one’s basic income and the work that provides it; also attrib.

1771		Smollett Humphrey Clinker (1925) I 4: I never knew his judgment fail, but in flying from his bread and butter on this occasion.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 201: He observed jocularly that by the Union, he had lost his bread and butter.
1843		R. Carlton New Purchase II 171: And all this was real American, United States’ learning!—useful, practical stuff!—such as would enable a fellow to get his own bread and butter.
1858		Bedford Gaz. (PA) 19 Mar. 1/4: It don’t give a poor fellow any consolation when he ain’t got any bread and butter.
1868		Wkly N. Carolina Standard (NC) 16 Sept. 2/2: The main cause of their unmitigated troubles is the loss of political power, and like Don Juan’s wretched sailors, ‘They grived for those who perished in the Cutter, / But principally for the bread and butter’.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 204: Any ‘brace dealer,’ having any respect for his future bread and butter, would not be seen with him in public.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Mar. 14/2: It was bad enough their miserable haggling on their English tour, when they had the excuse of heavy expenses [...], but when they ask, on their native heather, to evenly ‘whack’ the proceeds with a team of cricketers who earn their bread and butter at the game, can we wonder at the English amateurs coming to a determination to put a full stop to the rosy little game of the Murdoch and Company Amateurs – save the mark!
1890		A.C. Gunter Miss Nobody of Nowhere 24: I didn’t know I was playing for my bread and butter.
1894		G. du Maurier Trilby 266: They are his bread and butter, these beliefs.
1899		A. Binstead Gal’s Gossip 155: She tried in various ways to earn her own living [...] but, bless you, the poor girl couldn’t get bread and butter at any of them.
1901		J. Flynt World of Graft 129: It is but a step from relying on a thief for one’s bread and butter [...] to taking bribes and a ‘percentage’ out of a robbery.
1910		Marvel 5 Feb. 1: Goodness knows where some of us are going to get our bread and butter from.
1916		T. Burke Limehouse Nights 154: The bread-and-butter race is a hard one.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 250: Do you defend a lot of hoodlums that are trying to take the bread and butter away from our families?
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 17: He knew how hard she worked for her piece of bread and butter.
1930		M. Fiaschetti You Gotta Be Rough 187: ‘[Y]ou’ll overlook the fact that I’m a cop. It’s my bread and butter’.
1942		H. Miller Roofs of Paris (1983) 227: Jean’s bread and butter comes directly through her ability to suck a cunt well.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 346: That crap you put out, I understand, bread and butter.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 14: How could you be too conscientious about your bread and butter with three growing girls to feed and a wife to clothe?
1956		Kerouac letter 27 May in Charters I (1995) 580: A historical novel about Zapotec Indians [...] who will get me my bread and butter maybe in the end.
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 175: He reasoned that, after all, she was his bread and butter.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 78: Poking my nose in where it doesn’t belong is the way I earn my bread and butter.
1989		T. Blacker Fixx 83: Insurance was my bread and butter, information my jam.
1999		Guardian Guide 19–25 June 5: Cheesecake is, so to speak, our bread and butter.
2000		M. Collins Keepers of Truth 71: I mean, shit, kids like them were my bread and butter, the mortar of any small paper.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 103: The half that were press you might expect – I was their bread and butter.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 253: Our bread and butter remained drug busts.

In phrases

no bread and butter of mine

no business of mine.

1764		Foote Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 174: Damme, when once a man gives up his prerogative, he might as well give up – But, however it is no bread and butter of mine.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: It is no bread and butter of mine. I have no business with it.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: It is no bread and butter of mine; I have no business with it; or rather, I won’t intermeddle, because I shall get nothing by it.
1811		G. Moore Tales of Passions 154: ‘There is not another house within some miles of this place.’ ‘That is no bread and butter of mine,’ answered the landlady.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1826		Literary Magnet I 205: That’s no bread and butter of mine, says the Dutchman.
1830		Sporting Mag. Feb. 280/1: Although, to use an elegant expression, ‘it is no bread-and-butter of mine’.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 313/1: it is no bread and butter of mine, cela ne me regarde pas.

quarrel with (one’s) bread and butter (v.)

to act against one’s own best interests.

1738		Swift Polite Conversation 10: I won’t quarrel with my Bread and Butter for all that; I know when I’m well.
1782		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Lyric Odes’ Works (1794) I 32: Yet doth he curses on th’ occasion utter, And, foolish, quarrel with his bread and butter.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: To quarrel with one’s bread and butter; to act against one’s interest.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: To quarrel with one’s bread and butter; to act contrary to one’s interest.
1809		B.H. Malkin (trans.) Adventures of Gil Blas (1822) III 43: I was not such a fool as to quarrel with my bread-and-butter.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1820		T. Jefferson letter 30 Sept. n.p.: If they push it to that, they will have quarrelled with their bread and butter.
1838		W.N. Glascock Land Sharks and Sea Gulls I 239: It would not have done ‘to quarrel,’ as the saying is, ‘with her bread and butter’.
1846		Northern Warder (Fife) 15 Oct. 7/6: It is not pretty [...] to be always quarrelling with their bread and butter.
1854		F. Smedley Harry Coverdale’s Courtship 155: Two other domestic operations which [...] have lapsed into well-merited disrepute – viz., quarrelling with one’s bread and butter, and cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.
1862		Thackeray Adventures of Philip (1899) 536: It was mighty well Mr. Philip Firmin had shown his spirit, and quarrelled with his bread-and-butter.
1879		Aberdeen Jrnl 27 Feb. 2/5: [headline] Quarrelling with his Bread and Butter.
1884		Harper’s Mag. Dec. 92/2: Industries were not so plenty that men could afford [...] to quarrel with their bread and butter.
1914		Van Loan ‘The Indian Sign’ in Collier’s 1 Aug. in Van Loan (2004) 450: ‘Don’t quarrel with your bread and butter, dear,’ said Mrs. Cotter.
1924		Galsworthy White Monkey 95: Cheerio, my dear, don’t quarrel with bread and butter. I shall get a job, this is just to tide us over.
1934		D.L. Sayers Nine Tailors (1984) 123: You mustn’t quarrel with your bread and butter, Superintendent.

bread and butter n.1

In phrases

bread and butter n.¹