bread的词源
英文词源
- bread
- 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 bröd 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 brauð, Danish brød, 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.
中文词源
bread（面包）：面包中的一块
英语单词bread（面包）和break（断、破）拼写非常接近。它们之间有何关联呢？原来，在古英语中，bread指的不是面包，而是面包中的“一块”。a bread of loaf表示“一块面包”，其中，loaf指面包，而bread指“一块”。由于人们经常把a bread of loaf缩减为a bread，因此bread就产生了“面包”的含义。但从它的拼写上我们依然能够看出，它与break拥有相同的词源，都与“分开、切断”有关。
bread：[bred] n.面包
该词的英语词源请访问趣词词源英文版：bread 词源，bread 含义。
词源不确定。可能来自burn, 烧，烤。特指烤面包。
我们说“一块面包”，英语叫“a loaf of bread”。但如果你在公元700年左右时进入一家英国面包房，向里面要“a loaf of bread”，人们准会认为你是在胡说八道，说话颠三倒四，因为在那个年代，“loaf”的意思不是“块”、“条”而是“面包”；而“bread”当时也不是“面包”而是“薄片”，因此那句话就成了“a bread of thin slice”，这当然要闹笑话了。
bread：面包；生计，谋生之道
"面包"在德语中是brot,在瑞典语中是brod,与英语中的bread共源。
