"kind of food made from flour or the meal of some grain, kneaded into a dough, fermented, and baked," 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, from PIE root *bhreu- "to boil, bubble, effervesce, burn," in reference 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.)).

The extended sense of "food, sustenance in general" (late 12c.) is perhaps via the Lord's Prayer. The slang meaning "money" dates from 1940s, but compare breadwinner, and bread as "one's livelihood" dates to 1719. Bread and circuses (1914) is from Latin, in reference to food and entertainment provided by the government to keep the populace content. "Duas tantum res anxius optat, Panem et circenses" [Juvenal, Sat. x.80].

"to dress with bread crumbs," 1620s, from bread (n.). Related: Breaded; breading.

"fruit of the baobab tree," 1789, from monkey (n.) + bread (n.).

1932, from spoon (n.) + bread (n.).

c. 1300, as opposed to darker whole-grain type, from white (adj.) + bread (n.). Its popularity among middle-class America led to the slang adjectival sense of "conventional, bourgeois" (c. 1980). Old English had hwitehlaf.

1550s, "basket for holding bread," from bread (n.) + basket (n.). Slang meaning "belly, stomach" is attested from 1753, especially in pugilism. Another slang term for the belly was pudding-house (1590s).

"pertaining to basic material needs," from the noun phrase, "one's means of living," 1685, a figurative use of the words for the basic foodstuffs; see bread (n.) + butter (n.). Also, in reference to bread-and-butter as the typical food of young boys and girls, "of the age of growth; school-aged" (1620s).

also corn-bread, "kind of bread made from the meal of maize," 1775, from corn (n.1)+ bread (n.).

"thin, flat soft cake," 1510s, Scottish, probably shortened from Dutch schoon brood "fine bread," from Middle Dutch schoonbroot, from schoon, scone "bright, beautiful" (see sheen) + broot (see bread (n.)).

also short-bread, "flat cake made of flour, butter, and sugar in proportion to make it 'short' (crumbly) when baked," 1755, from short (see shortening) + bread (n.).