Meanings
- historicaluncountableA cheap bread made from seasonal legumes, bran, and other non-wheat cereal grains such as oats and rye, produced and consumed in medieval Europe, and often used to feed horses.
1 more example
Horsebread was, literally, the very cheapest sort of bread intended to feed horses. It isn't the city bakers who are guilty of making underweight loaves or overcharging for them; it's the women baxters. I suspect the men didn't demean themselves by baking horsebread, rather than that they were too honest to cheat the customers. Horsebread, in this case, was being made from ground beans but, during food shortages, it could be made from acorns or beechnuts instead. In the worst times of famine or poverty, the poor might be reduced to buying and eating horsebread themselves.
2016, Toni Mount, A Year in the Life of Medieval England, Amberley Publishing, →ISBN
Origin
Cite this entry
horsebread. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horsebread
“horsebread.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horsebread. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “horsebread,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/horsebread.
Source: horsebread on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.