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bread-and-butter issue

noun

Simple meaning

Any issue, such as inflation or prices, that affects ordinary people in their daily lives.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

brehdandbuhterihshoo

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈbɹɛˈdændbətɚɪʃu

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. politics

    Any issue, such as inflation or prices, that affects ordinary people in their daily lives.

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

This meaning: (politics) Any issue, such as inflation or prices, that affects ordinary people in their daily lives.

Used this way, bread-and-butter issue is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in government or politics contexts.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Government/politics

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.