Meaning
To earn money or achieve success, especially to support a household; to win a prize or secure the desired result. Common in sports and business talk for coming out on top. Informal and upbeat; now used worldwide, especially of sporting victories and breadwinner roles. Regional use: American English.
Origin
The Phrase Finder's research finds no printed record of the phrase before September 1906, when a telegram from the mother of boxer Joe Gans, before his world lightweight title fight of 3 September 1906, ended 'you bring home the bacon'; her son's win and his reply that he had brought home 'not only the bacon, but the gravy' were reported in the press the next day, and boxing-related uses multiplied in the following months. The phrase is therefore a twentieth-century American coinage popularised by sports journalism, though Mrs Gans may have been repeating an existing colloquialism rather than inventing it. Two older stories are sometimes attached but do not account for the modern phrase: the Dunmow Flitch, a twelfth-century Essex custom (mentioned by Chaucer c. 1395) of awarding a side of bacon to devoted married couples, and the use of 'bacon' as slang for one's body and hence one's livelihood since the 1600s, which may merely explain why the image suited boxing.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- bring home the bacon and the gravy
- bring the bacon home
- bringin' home the bacon
- take home the bacon
Usage Examples
- She doubled her client list last quarter and really brought home the bacon for the agency.
- Neither doubles team could bring home the bacon at the national championships.
- With two part-time jobs, he managed to bring home the bacon after the factory closed.