General
brown bread
What does brown bread mean?
Figuratively, finished, done for, beyond saving.
"Once the bank called the loan, the business was brown bread."
Origin
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.
Frequently asked questions
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.
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