Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. dead.

1969		S.T. Kendall Up the Frog 22: I opened the Rory and standing there / Was me one ’n’ t’other called Ted. / ’E says ‘I’m back from Australia.’ Says I ‘we thought you was brahn bread’.
1979		F. Norman Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 98: Brown bread and stiff as a side of beef in a Smithfield freezer.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 55: Feeling my body so cold [...] they thought I was brown bread.
1985		J. Sullivan ‘As One Door Closes’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Well it ain’t gonna bother you is it Rodney, ’cos you’re gonna be brown bread.
1989		R.G. Barrett Boys from Binjiwunyawunya 141: Kilby’s brown bread. He had a heart attack in the club.
1991		B. Stewart Broken Arse II vi: You’ll be brown bread when I’ve finished with you, Maori!
1995		J. Cameron Vinnie Got Blown Away 47: Only Vinnie’s brown bread now so there’s no future me getting involved.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 127: If I ended up brown bread [...] all my neighbours would be out in the street, talking to the TV and papers.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 31/1: brown bread adj. 1 dead.
2013		K. Sampson Killing Pool 234: The kid’s gone. Brown bread.
2018		(con. 1930s) M. McGrath Pie & Mash 60: Five of the seventeen [babies] are ‘brown bread’.
2021		Betoota-isms 243: ‘Hit a roo on the way back from Coonamble [...] he was well and truly Brown Bread’.

2. (N.Z. prison) in weak/fig. use of sense 1, facing a beating.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 31/1: brown bread about to be assaulted.