white bread
noun
any white or light-colored bread made from finely ground, usually bleached, flour.
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white bread
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white-bread
white-breadadjectivepertaining to or characteristic of the white middle class; bourgeois.
white bread
1 Americannoun
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white breads
plural
white-bread
2
American
[hwahyt-bred, wahyt-]
/ ˈʰwaɪtˌbrɛd, ˈwaɪt- /
adjective
Informal.
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pertaining to or characteristic of the white middle class; bourgeois.
a typical white-bread suburban neighborhood.
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bland; conventional.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of white bread1
First recorded in 1300–50
Origin of white-bread2
First recorded in 1975–80
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.
See Examples For:
Refined carbohydrates include foods such as white bread, pastries, and many sugary products that have been stripped of much of their natural fiber and nutrients.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 18, 2026
Remembering that she once said she craved white bread with butter and honey—all scarce commodities during the war, especially in this backwater—Nanning sets off on a mini-odyssey to gather them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 16, 2026
As word of mouth spread curious customers lined up for meals that included two tenders with fries, slaw and slices of white bread, nearly identical to what the chain offers today.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2025
One of his creations for a typewriter-friendly bite was sliced onion and peanut butter on white bread, nothing fell apart.
From Salon ● Jul. 12, 2025
I’ll stop in at some corner store on the way back, some place where they sell milk till midnight and slightly stale sliced white bread.
From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood
But it was her TV ads for orange juice—featuring her own children, a cartoon bird, and a lilting jingle about the “Florida sunshine tree”—that made her the nation’s leading avatar for white-bread American wholesomeness.
From Slate ● Jan. 11, 2025
But over the last few decades, it’s evolved in ways, both gritty and grand, that make it more megalopolis than white-bread suburb.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 25, 2022
By the end, we’ve mainly learned that Allen is the white-bread straight man to Rob’s enigmatic free spirit, which is not all that much by way of insights.
From New York Times ● Mar. 30, 2021
I remember that flight as though it happened last week — the noise of the plane, the uniformed soldiers, the white-bread sandwiches they gave us though no one was very hungry.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 29, 2019
But Bellizarius, the brave Generall, will flame high and cleare like a Beacon; but your Puritane Eugenius will burne blew, blew like a white-bread sop in Aqua Vitae.
From A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 1 by A. H. (Arthur Henry) Bullen
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.
