- 1
The breadline is a very low level of income: enough to eat, but nothing extra. If a family is on the breadline, they can buy food, but they cannot save, and one bill can knock them over. Bread here stands for the most basic food — the line you must not fall below if you still want to eat. This use is especially British. There is an older, more literal picture too: a line of people waiting for free bread. The money meaning grew from that world of needing bread to live.
僅能糊口的收入；溫飽線
組成bread + line. In this sense, the line is the income level at which you can still afford bread.
同家族的字
- breadwinnersame picture of bread as the money you live on
原始詞典資料2 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
breadlinenoun/ˈbɹɛdlaɪn/
- 1
A line of people waiting to receive food from a charity.
- I do not think anyone of us can walk by a breadline and see even the most unkempt and raggedy man in the line without saying to himself, "There but for the grace of God."
- Breadlines and social agencies, while staffing women, employed more men and served more men, making women a minority in the visual landscape.
- 2
The lowest income level at which one's most basic necessities of survival are met; poverty line or subsistence level.
- Every day brings new worries about falling below the breadline.
- […] and she wasn't used to cash, living on the breadline with a kid to bring up.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。