Breadwinner

//ˈbɹɛdˌwɪnɚ// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The primary income-earner in a household.

    "At one side lay the little town of Hollingford, into a street of which Mr. Gibson's front door opened; and delicate columns, and little puffs of smoke were already beginning to rise from many a cottage chimney where some housewife was already up, and preparing breakfast for the bread-winner of the family."

  2. 2
    one whose earnings are the primary source of support for their dependents wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
blue collar workerblue-collar workerbreadearnercasualcasual laborercommon laborer

Example

More examples

"Losing their breadwinner was a shock to that family, but the insurance money helps a lot."

Etymology

From bread + winner, where to win = to earn. Compare West Frisian breawinning (“livelihood”, literally “bread-winning”), Dutch broodwinning (“livelihood”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.