breadwinner
Americannoun
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breadwinners
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of breadwinner
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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“This particular division of private and public, housewife and breadwinner … was built on a flow of cheap fossil fuels and car culture,” she told The 19th.
From Salon ● Aug. 27, 2026
Advice for a burned-out breadwinner: A letter writer who’s outwardly successful by all measures—a wife, kids, a well-paying job—can’t stop dreaming about leaving it all behind.
From Slate ● Aug. 20, 2026
“It’s not surprising that families would prioritize the man being the breadwinner to make more money because families need more money” to pay for healthcare, child care and more.
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 23, 2026
At 35 years old, Zhou was paying off his mortgage and had been his family’s primary breadwinner, according to his lawyer.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 27, 2026
He had a job he had to keep because he was the breadwinner in the household.
From "Ugly" by Robert Hoge
Telephone poles covered in fundraising pleas for families whose breadwinners either rotted in faraway detention center or were sent back to their home countries.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 6, 2026
The welfare system attempted to replace family breadwinners, but it turned out that those breadwinners were providing more than money.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 24, 2026
One is that its stars are their family’s breadwinners.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2026
The result: Most breadwinners still have jobs, and they are still spending.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 10, 2026
So, as the I. C. trains rush their thousands to work and home again the citizens and breadwinners let their imaginations gallop toward a faraway horizon.
From A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago by Ben Hecht
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
