adjective General Slang

Brown Bread

/braʊn brɛd/ · adjective · slang

Cockney for dead — 'brown bread' rhymes with dead, used both literally and as a threat.

0

Definitions

1

Figuratively, finished, done for, beyond saving.

“Once the bank called the loan, the business was brown bread.”
by community
0
2

Used as a grim warning of fatal consequences.

“Touch my car again and you're brown bread, son.”
by community
0
3

Dead. 'Brown bread' rhymes with 'dead'; unusually for rhyming slang the full phrase is kept rather than clipped, perhaps because 'brown' alone wouldn't carry it.

“Poor old Reg has been brown bread these ten years.”
by community
0

Brown Bread In A Sentence

If the boss finds out, we're all brown bread.
His old motor finally went brown bread on the motorway.
Half the cast of that show are brown bread now, sadly.

Origin & Usage

Twentieth-century East End rhyming slang on 'dead'; it gained wide currency through Cockney crime-drama dialogue and remains one of the few rhyming-slang terms usually spoken in full. It belongs to the morbid-humour strand of London patter recorded since Hotten's 1859 work.

Variants bin lids (rare regional)
Tags #cockney#rhyming#british#uk#death

People Also Ask

What does brown bread mean in Cockney?

It means dead. 'Brown bread' rhymes with 'dead', and it's used both literally and as a threat.

Why isn't brown bread shortened like other slang?

Most rhyming slang drops the rhyme, but 'brown' alone wouldn't make sense, so the full phrase survives intact.

Where did brown bread come from?

From twentieth-century East End speech, popularised by Cockney film and TV dialogue within the older London slang tradition.

Comments 0