1. lit. A basket for holding bread, or in which bread is handed round.
1552. Huloet, Bread basket, hamper, or hutch.
1780. Wilson, in Phil. Trans., LXX. 457. A bread-basket was filled with snow.
1849. Cobden, Speeches, 66. To indemnify themselves by putting their hands into your bread-baskets.
2. slang. The stomach.
1753. Foote, Englishm. Paris, I. (1763), 15. Made the Soupemaigre rumble in his Bread-basket.
1763. C. Johnston, Reverie, I. 135. Hitting him a plump in the bread-basket.
1803. Bristed, Pedest. Tour, I. 46. Our landlady, who was standing … with her mouth wide open, and her hands locked together … resting on her prominent breadbasket.
1850. Kingsley, Alt. Locke, xxxiii. (D.). ‘What do you think o’ that now in a policeman’s bread-basket?’
