Meaning
The person whose earnings supply the main, sometimes the only, income supporting a household. Historically often assumed to be the husband, the word is now used neutrally of whichever partner, parent, or family member carries the financial load. Neutral register, common in economics and family journalism; increasingly paired with 'sole' or 'dual' rather than assuming one earner. Regional use: General English.
Origin
Formed from 'bread', probably in its literal sense, plus 'winner', using the older verbal sense of win as to work or struggle for something - so a breadwinner is one who labours to put bread on the table, much as the Old English word from which 'lord' developed meant 'loaf-guardian'. Etymonline attests the modern family sense in 1821 ('one who supplies a living for himself and others') and records a slightly earlier 1818 use meaning a skill or art by which one makes a living. The compound is in fact older still: the OED's earliest evidence is from before 1614, in the diary of the Scottish minister James Melville, and Merriam-Webster accordingly gives circa 1614 as its first known use. The anchor's 19th-century date is therefore right about the word's establishment - the breadwinner model of a single family earner spread with industrialization - but wrong about its first appearance, which is early 17th-century.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- main breadwinner
- sole breadwinner
Usage Examples
- When the bakery closed, Marta became the family's breadwinner overnight.
- Being the sole breadwinner for six people left him little energy for anything else.
- Dual breadwinner households are now the norm in most of the country.