Bread or bred?
bread is a noun meaning “A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals”; bred is a verb meaning “simple past and past participle of breed”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) bread is about 5.1 times as common as bred.
What is the difference between bread and bred?
| bread | bred | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | noun, verb |
| Meaning | A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals Such foodstuff that is not difficult to chew, being not extremely hard, dense, and dry To coat with breadcrumbs | Alternative form of braid (“board, shelf, plank”) |
| Example | We made sandwiches with the bread we bought from the bakery | none recorded |
| Forms | breads | none |
| Pronunciation | /brɛd/ /brɛːd/ /bɹɛd/ | /bɹɛd/ /bɹed/ /bɾɛd/ |
| In writing | 32 times per million words | 6.2 times per million words |
Sources: bread and bred in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of bread and bred
bread
- 1
A foodstuff made by baking dough made from cereals
- 2
To coat with breadcrumbs
breaded fish
- 3
To form in meshes; net
- 4
A piece of embroidery; a braid
- 5
Such foodstuff that is not difficult to chew, being not extremely hard, dense, and dry
We made sandwiches with the bread we bought from the bakery
- 6
Food; sustenance; support of life, in general
- 7
Any variety of bread
Some breads are harder and drier than others
- 8
USslangMoney
bred
- 1
Alternative form of braid (“board, shelf, plank”)
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, bread or bred?
bread appears 32 times per million words; bred 6.2 times per million words.
bread 32 times per million wordsbred 6.2 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).