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Glite Dictionary
sour bread

sour bread

3.5
Bread made with a mixture of flour and water that has natural yeast, giving a tangy taste
  • noun
translation icon : pan de masa madre
  • They offer me generous portions of tej brewed from sorghum and injera, a spongy, fermented, sour bread with spicy sauce.

Examples

  • The sandwich was made with sour bread, which gave it a unique tangy taste.

  • The highlight of the evening was the traditional Creek meal prepared and served by Creek women; it included sour bread, blue dumplings, and a Creek specialty called coal flour.

    Academic text (2008)

  • I enjoy making sour bread at home using a natural starter for the best flavor.

  • For breakfast, I toasted slices of sour bread and spread butter on top.

Synonyms

sourdough
vssour bread
8 3.5

Bread made from dough left with wild yeast, often with a tangy taste

highlights a prepared starter's active fermentation creating a tangy taste
sourdough bread
vssour bread
3 2.8

Bread made with a natural starter that has a slightly sour taste and a chewy crust

emphasizes the starter's active fermentation and tangy taste

Surface Forms

sour bread singular
sour breads plural

Morphology

sour + bread

The meaning 'bread made with a sour/tangy taste' follows directly from combining the adjective 'sour' (having a tart or fermented flavor) with 'bread' (baked dough), so a learner who knows both words can infer the intended sense. This simple adjective + noun composition is a common, compositional pattern cross-linguistically and is therefore immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner.

Etymology

Sour bread gets its name from the simple kitchen habit of keeping a starter—a bit of old dough with wild yeast and tiny natural bacteria—that slowly changes the dough and gives it a tangy, sour taste. That's why sour bread means bread made with a starter and a slightly sour taste.