breadwinner

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The primary income-earner in a household.

   At one side lay the little town of Hollingford, into a street of which Mr. Gibson's front door opened; and delicate columns, and little puffs of smoke were already beginning to rise from many a cottage chimney where some housewife was already up, and preparing breakfast for the bread-winner of the family.

2. 2
   noun

   one whose earnings are the primary source of support for their dependents

Etymology

From bread + winner, where to win = to earn. Compare West Frisian breawinning (“livelihood”, literally “bread-winning”), Dutch broodwinning (“livelihood”).