Idiom: Quarrel with bread and butter

Meaning:

• Bread and butter, here, indicate the means of one’s living. (That is why we say ‘he is the bread winner of the family’). If a sub-ordinate in an organisation is quarrelsome or if he is not patient enough to bear the reprimand he deserves, gets angry and retorts or provokes the higher-up, the top man dismisses him from the job. So, he loses the job that gave him bread and butter. Hence we say, he quarrelled with bread and butter (manager or the top man) and lost his job.

Category:

• Food

See also:

• Discussion Forum: English Idioms and Sayings
• Idiom Definition
• Idiom Quizzes