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Breaking bread

Reader question:

Please explain “broke some bread”” in this passage: At 5:30 we received a call that our first granddaughter was born. So we broke some bread in celebration. How sweet it is!

My comments:

To break bread is, literally, to tear a big loaf of bread into small pieces before eating them. This is necessary because even a small bread bun is usually larger than a mouthful.

Originally, the bread breaking expression comes straight from the Christian Bible, as The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms explains:

This term occurs in numerous places in the New Testament, where it sometimes means to share bread and other times to distribute food to others. In later usage it came to refer to the sacramental bread of Communion in Christian services. The latter survives in the spiritual hymn, “Let Us Break Bread Together.” [1300s]

Here is an example from the Bible (King James Version):

Acts 20:7 - And upon the first [day] of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.

And another one:

Matthew 26:26-29 - And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed [it], and brake [it], and gave [it] to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.

See?

Alright, in our example, the newly crowned grandparents were elated to hear that their first granddaughter was born. To celebrate her advent, they ate and drank – to their heart’s satisfaction, too, predictably.