bread line
2
4.9
- noun
- /brɛd laɪn/
:
cola de alimentos
- So there was this long bread line at a bakery next to our house.
- wait in a bread line
- stand in bread lines
- long bread lines
So there was this long bread line at a bakery next to our house.
- So there was this long bread line at a bakery next to our house.
- you know, when, when, when they're, when they're waiting in bread lines, Yes. And
- They're moving some stuff, but there are bread lines.
Examples
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What would that look like if all of those people had to actually stand outside in bread lines like in the old days?
Blog text (22) -
James J. Braddock, the Cinderella Man... who just a year ago was standing in a bread line.
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Were there not severe food shortages and crippling bread lines in Soviet Russia during the 1980s?
Blog text (4) -
And many of them had to get their food from soup kitchens or bread lines (places where food is given for free or at a low price).
Blog text (4) -
They talk about hungry children, sick people, and bread lines until the West starts to worry more about the suffering we cause than the suffering they cause—at which point the "international community" creates humanitarian programs for "the people."
Blog text (8) -
Many families relied on the bread line to feed their children during the economic crisis.
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Every day, dozens of people stood in a long bread line outside the community center.
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During the famine, thousands waited patiently in the bread line for a meal.
Synonyms
1
6.0
A line of people waiting for free food during hard times
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a queue of people waiting for free food' is directly derivable from combining 'bread' (food) with 'line' (queue), following a straightforward noun + noun compositional pattern that a B1 learner who knows both words can deduce. Although 'bread' can also be slang for money, that secondary sense does not block the literal reading here, so the Phrase is still transparently interpretable from its constituents.
Etymology
The phrase bread line comes from hard times when people stood in long lines to get free bread from soup kitchens. Because people were literally waiting for bread in a line, the phrase means 'a queue for free food'.