Talk:breadwinner

Etymology

• from (deprecated template usage) bread + (deprecated template usage) winner where to (deprecated template usage) win = to (deprecated template usage) earn

There are two issues here:

• This reads to the effect that it relates to "bread" as slang for money. I've heard somewhere that it actually refers to the bread we eat, as in feeding the family. But I don't have a source to cite, and in any case we need to clarify this point.
• At the moment, no such meaning of "win" is listed under that entry. Though I've just discovered that C20C gives "to get by labour" as the first meaning. Though something you "get by labour" could just as well be a natural resource you have dug up from the ground as money earned in a job. In any case, if we're going to cite the "earn" meaning of "win" as the source of this word, we ought to be able to attest it and list it under that entry.

I'd also wondered whether "win" and "earn" come from the same root, but that doesn't seem to be so going by the etymological information here.

But that's enabled me to look at it another way: by working, one gains the money to trade in for food. So one gains by labour, albeit in an indirect way, the bread that the family eats. What do you think? — User:Smjg (talk) 13:14, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

• Hi. Try this link ... It's not definitive, but they are usually pretty good. -- ALGRIF talk 08:51, 21 August 2011 (UTC)