Middle English Dictionary Entry

brēd n.(1)
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Entry Info

Forms brēd n.(1) Also bræd, brad, bread, bried, bry(e)ad, brid, breid, breit.
Etymology OE brēad (rare).

Definitions (Senses and Subsenses)

1.
(a) Bread as a staple food; any food baked from dough or paste, such as leavened or unleavened bread, rolls, biscuit, cake, and pastry; (b) ~ and water (milk), the diet of fasting or penance; (c) combs. ~ corn, grain for making bread; ~ huche, ?a kneading trough; ~ lepe, breadbasket; (d) alch. [see quot.].
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2.
(a) Bread (of a certain kind); -- with specifying word or phrase [which see for defns.]; (b) pastry, pie-crust; (baken) in ~.
Show 35 Quotations
3.
Bread as a commodity: (a) ~ both, prob. a market stall where bread was baked and sold; ~ strete, the proper name of a London street and ward; (b) ~ leder, one who carts bread for sale; ~ mongestere, ~ seller, ~ sellestere, bread-seller; ~ wrighte, baker; (c) ~ silver, a rent paid in commutation of the duty of supplying the lord with bread; ~ wite, a fine for breaking the assize of bread.
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4.
(a) Food; biten (breken, eten) ~ [see the verbs]; as ever ete I bred, as I live; (b) food and clothing, livelihood; bodili ~, clothes and ~.
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5.
Fig. (a) Food for the spirit or soul; ~ gostli; (b) mi ~ is bake, I am done for, my goose is cooked.
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6.
Eccl. (a) The sacramental bread; aungeles ~; god (goddes bodi) in forme of ~; holi ~, sacred ~, singing ~, song ~; (b) aungeles ~, the body of Jesus; (c) bi ~ of whete [a mild oath].
Show 20 Quotations

Supplemental Materials (draft)

  • (1432) *Acc.R.Witham : i scalydpanne, i bredknyf, i handhook.
    • Note: New compound.
    Note: Quot. belongs to sense 1.(c).
    Note: Gloss: ~ knif, a knife used for slicing bread, a bread knife.
  • a1500 Terms Assoc.(3) (Lamb 306)234 : A Cast of brede.
    • Note: Additional quot. for sense 1.(a).
Note: The list of variant spellings in the form section is incomplete and needs revision to accord with standards of later volumes of the MED.--notes per MLL

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