breadwinning

English

Etymology

From bread +‎ winning. Compare West Frisian breawinning (“livelihood”), Dutch broodwinning (“profession”).

Noun

breadwinning (uncountable)

1. The earning of a household's primary income.

   Synonym: breadearning

   • 1898 September, Joseph Conrad, “Youth: a Narrative”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXIV, number DCCCCXCV, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publication Co., page 309:

     This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.

   • 2007, Angela Hattery, Earl Smith, African American families, page 104:

     And the key issues that both batterers and battered women identify as triggers to battering are men's successes in breadwinning and the bedroom – the two Bs.

Related terms

• breadwinner

Translations

Translations

Greek: αποχειροβίωτος (el) (apocheirovíotos)