bread and butter

1 informalJOB/TASK the work that provides you with most of the money that you need in order to live 你的/某人的生计[谋生手段]

Writing is my bread and butter.

写作是我谋生的手段。

→ your/somebody’s bread and butter at bread(1)

bread-and-butter

Word family

ˌbread-and-ˈbutter adjectiveadj [only before noun]

1 British EnglishBrEBASIC bread-and-butter questions are very important basic ones 〔问题〕有关生计的，最基本的

bread-and-butter political issues such as jobs and housing

就业和住房等关乎民生的政治问题

2. bread-and-butter work is work that is not very exciting but provides you with most of the money that you need in order to live 〔工作〕赖以养家糊口的，赖以为生的

Examples from the Corpus

bread-and-butter• In the late nineties when workers showed excessive interest in bread-and-butter issues, the revolutionaries denounced their petty-bourgeois, trade-unionist mentality.

From Longman Business Dictionary

bread and butterˌbread and ˈbutter noun [singular]

if something is your bread and butter, it is the thing that gives you your main income

The paper’s bread and butter is reporting local events in a small community.

Chinese

Syllable

Corpus

BNC: 0 COCA: 0

bread and butter

Wages and salaries: wage, salary, pay...

bread-and-butter

Natural, basic and essential: basic, fundamental, natural...

Important: important, major, key...