bread: [OE] The general Germanic word for ‘bread’ in prehistoric times was what we now know as loaf; bread probably originally meant simply ‘(piece of) food’, but as bread was among the commonest foods, the word bread gradually became more specialized, passing via ‘piece of bread’, ‘broken bread’, to simply ‘bread’. Old English brēad and related Germanic forms such as German brot and Swedish br?d point to a hypothetical Germanic precursor *brautham, but the word’s ultimate origins are unknown. Some etymologists have derived it from Indo- European *bhreu-, source of English brew.
bread (n.)
Old English bread "bit, crumb, morsel; bread," cognate with Old Norse braue, Danish br?d, Old Frisian brad, Middle Dutch brot, Dutch brood, German Brot. According to one theory [Watkins, etc.] from Proto-Germanic *brautham, which would be from the root of brew (v.) and refer to the leavening.
But OED argues at some length for the basic sense being not "cooked food" but "piece of food," and the Old English word deriving from a Proto-Germanic *braudsmon- "fragments, bits" (cognate with Old High German brosma "crumb," Old English breotan "to break in pieces") and being related to the root of break (v.). It cites Slovenian kruh "bread," literally "a piece."
Either way, by c. 1200 it had replaced the usual Old English word for "bread," which was hlaf (see loaf (n.)). Slang meaning "money" dates from 1940s, but compare breadwinner. Bread-and-butter in the figurative sense of "basic needs" is from 1732. Bread and circuses (1914) is from Latin, in reference to food and entertainment provided by governments to keep the populace happy. "Duas tantum res anxius optat, Panem et circenses" [Juvenal, Sat. x.80].
bread (v.)
"to dress with bread crumbs," 1727, from bread (n.). Related: Breaded; breading.
例文
1. For her,books were as necessary to life as bread .
彼女にとって本はパンのように生活必需品だ。
2.Try to eat at least four slices of bread a day.
毎日少なくとも4枚のパンを食べるようにしています。
3.The government increased prices on several basic commodities like bread and meat.
政府はパンや肉などいくつかの基本商品の価格を引き上げた。
4.The crew of the ship gave them nothing but bread to eat.
船のスタッフはパン以外何も食べさせない。
5.There is more fibre in wholemeal bread than in white bread .