Definition of "breadline" [bread•line]

• A line of people waiting to receive food given by a charitable organization or public agency. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "If you listen to what the Rowntree Foundation calls the breadline you might be amazed at what they consider the bare necessities."
• "Articles examine social attitudes to unemployment and poverty through the decades, and there's also a survey of Depression and wartime cookbooks, and a sobering photograph of a Helsinki leipäjono literally "breadline" or soup kitchen in 2006."
• "In 2006, in an unusual act of defiance, a female fruit picker from South Africa condemned Tesco's labour practices in person at the company's annual general meeting, claiming that workers such as herself were receiving "breadline" wages."