1. Corn or grain for making bread. An expression that comes down from a time when ‘corn’ had a much wider sense than it now bears in England or America; cf. peppercorn, and in OE. senepes corn mustard seed.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. VII. 58. A Busschel of Bred corn he bringeþ þer-Inne.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. lxiv. Many medle benes with bred corne, to make þe bred þe more heuy.
1610. P. Holland, Camden’s Brit., II. 219. The inhabitants … use in steed of bread-corne, dried fish.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch (1879), I. 251/2. A great quantity of bread-corn was brought into Rome.
1846. M’Culloch, Acc. Brit. Empire (1854), I. 477. Rye … the bread-corn of Germany and Russia.
1857. Eliza Acton, Eng. Bread-bk., iv. 53.
2. spec. ‘Corn to be ground into bread-meal, not to be used for finer purposes’ (N. Linc. Gloss.).
attrib. 1669. Boyle, Contn. New Exp., II. (1682), 28. I made Paste of Bread-corn-meal, without Leaven.
