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Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

breadcrumb en · NOUN

Pronunciation

  • (US) audio
  • /ˈbɹɛdˌkɹʌm/ (US)

Etymology

From bread + crumb. The computing and figurative senses allude to the German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, where Hansel leaves a trail of breadcrumbs to find the way back home when venturing into the woods.

Meanings

  1. (in-plural) A tiny piece of bread, either one that falls from bread as it is cut or eaten, or one made deliberately by crumbling bread.
  2. (in-plural) A single link in a chain indicating the hierarchical location of a directory, web page or similar, used as a navigation aid.
    • Breadcrumbs usually look something like this: "Home > About Us > Staff" and are positioned near the top navigation. […] The words in the breadcrumbs are links to pages at higher levels of the website. 2010, Mark Stephenson, Web-Empower Your Church:
  3. (in-plural) A fragment of data that serves to log the actions taken by a program, used in debugging.
    • […] track metrics used to improve performance, or log a series of breadcrumbs to track an application's progress, […] 2012, Wallace B. McClure, Nathan Blevins, John J. Croft IV, Wrox Cross Platform Android and iOS Mobile Development Three-Pack:
    • If you believe the system can merrily proceed despite an assertion failure, code the exception handler to log the error, leaving debugging breadcrumbs behind, and return. 2004, Jack Ganssle, The Firmware Handbook, page 276:
  4. (figuratively, in-plural) One in a series of clues leading to a person or place.
    • Before he died, James Halliday (Mark Rylance), the hermit-like, socially maladjusted tech genius who created The Oasis, hid an Easter egg somewhere in the circuitry, scattering bread crumbs that lead to its location. Find the egg, and the mogul’s fortune—along with total control of his digital fiefdom—is yours. It’s the ultimate capitalist scavenger hunt! 2018 March 26, A. A. Dowd, “Steven Spielberg Finds Fun, and maybe even a Soul, in the Pandering Pastiche of Ready Player One”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 31 May 2018:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
breadcrumbs Number=Plur lexicographic
bread crumb alternative lexicographic

Coordinates

cracker meal

Deriveds

breadcrumby · breadcrumb sponge

Relateds

cookie (computing senses)

Synonyms

crumb (tiny piece of bread)

Translations (72)

cmn 麵包糠 /面包糠 (tiny piece of bread) · scn muḍḍica (tiny piece of bread) · yue 麵包屑 /面包屑 (tiny piece of bread) · pt migalha (tiny piece of bread) · fr fil d'Ariane (trail of hyperlinks) · hu prézli (tiny piece of bread) · ro pesmet (tiny piece of bread) · cs drobečková navigace (trail of hyperlinks) · fi leivänmurut (trail of hyperlinks) · pt pão ralado (tiny piece of bread) · de Brosame (tiny piece of bread) · cmn 麵包屑導航 /面包屑导航 (trail of hyperlinks) · fi leivänmuru (tiny piece of bread) · ms serdak roti (tiny piece of bread) · ja パン粉 (tiny piece of bread) · ro firimitură (tiny piece of bread) · it mollica (tiny piece of bread) · pt farelo (tiny piece of bread) · cs strouhanka (tiny piece of bread) · ga grabhróg aráin (tiny piece of bread) · gl migalla (tiny piece of bread) · mr ब्रेडक्रंब (trail of hyperlinks) · fi korppujauho (tiny piece of bread) · af broodkrummel (tiny piece of bread) · el τρίμμα (tiny piece of bread) · gl migallo (tiny piece of bread) · de Brotkrume (tiny piece of bread) · vi bột chiên xù (tiny piece of bread) · gl fungalla (tiny piece of bread) · fa مغز نان (tiny piece of bread) · el ψίχουλο (tiny piece of bread) · hu kenyérmorzsa (tiny piece of bread) · yi ברייזל (tiny piece of bread) · es migaja (tiny piece of bread) · sk strúhanka (tiny piece of bread) · eo panero (tiny piece of bread) · nl broodkruimel (tiny piece of bread) · es miga (tiny piece of bread) · fr panure (tiny piece of bread) · gl faragulla (tiny piece of bread) · ru кро́шка (tiny piece of bread) · gl miga (tiny piece of bread) · gl frangulla (tiny piece of bread) · ga bruscar aráin (tiny piece of bread) · ko 빵 부스러기 (tiny piece of bread) · ru хле́бная кро́шка (tiny piece of bread) · nb brødrasp (tiny piece of bread) · pl okruszek chleba (tiny piece of bread) · id panir (tiny piece of bread) · ms serbuk roti (tiny piece of bread) · fr miette de pain (tiny piece of bread) · is brauðmylsna (tiny piece of bread) · acw بُقْسُمَاط (tiny piece of bread) · pl bułka tarta (tiny piece of bread) · de Brösel (tiny piece of bread) · sl krušna drobtina (tiny piece of bread) · de Brotkrümel (tiny piece of bread) · nn brødrasp (tiny piece of bread) · ja パン屑 (tiny piece of bread) · he פירורי לחם \ פֵּרוּר (tiny piece of bread) · ar بُقْسُمَاطْ (tiny piece of bread) · ko 빵가루 (tiny piece of bread) · fr miette (tiny piece of bread) · it briciola (tiny piece of bread) · cmn 麵包屑 /面包屑 (tiny piece of bread) · el ψίχα (tiny piece of bread) · yue 麵包糠 /面包糠 (tiny piece of bread) · it pangrattato (tiny piece of bread) · pl okruszek chleba (trail of hyperlinks) · vi vụn bánh mì (tiny piece of bread) · hu zsemlemorzsa (tiny piece of bread) · tr ekmek kırıntısı (tiny piece of bread)

wikipedia: Hansel and Gretel

breadcrumb en · VERB

Pronunciation

  • (US) audio
  • /ˈbɹɛdˌkɹʌm/ (US)

Etymology

From bread + crumb. The computing and figurative senses allude to the German fairy tale Hansel and Gretel, where Hansel leaves a trail of breadcrumbs to find the way back home when venturing into the woods.

Meanings

  1. (transitive) To sprinkle breadcrumbs on to food, normally before cooking.
    • A Swede can't imagine a more summery food than breadcrumbed Baltic herring fillets stuffed with dill or parsley and soused in an oldfashioned vinegar 2011, Sten Sture Skaldeman, Lose Weight by Eating, →ISBN:
    • Said chef then proceeds to cough slimy phlegm all over the veal before it is breadcrumbed. 2010, Teri Louise Kelly, Sex, Knives and Bouillabaisse, →ISBN:
    • All this breadcrumbing finished, you can put the meat on a grid over a baking dish and leave it until you are ready to cook it. 2009, Elizabeth David, Omelette and a Glass Of Wine, →ISBN:
  2. (intransitive) To add navigational breadcrumbs to (a web page or user interface).
    • The most striking change from previous versions of Windows is that Vista displays the path using a method called breadcrumbing. 2007, John Rizzo, Moving to Microsoft Windows Vista: Visual Quickproject Guide, →ISBN, page 93:
    • Along those same lines, creating separate folders can enable you to use "breadcrumbing," which is another navigation aid (discussed in the section "Determining How to Organize the Information," later in this chapter). 2003, Sybex Inc., HTML complete, page 155:
    • One navigational technique—breadcrumbing—is like having a “You Are Here” store directory in each aisle. 2003, Kreta Chandler, Karen Hyatt, Customer-centered Design: A New Approach to Web Usability, →ISBN:
  3. To use clues or enticements to lead someone in the desired direction.
    • The process of breadcrumbing is the means by which a game writer can lead the player forward with a trail of clues, or the level designers can lead the player via more physical symbols. 2007, Chris Mark Bateman, Game Writing: Narrative Skills for Videogames, page 89:
    • I consider where more landmarks are needed and other changes for better flow and breadcrumbing. 2016, Christopher W. Totten, An Architectural Approach to Level Design, →ISBN, pages 198–199:
    • It was what had attracted me to her in the first place. "You can say something," I said. "I'm easy to talk to." She frowned. The last time we had a private talk, in her kitchen, she admitted to playing me for a fool, making me fall in love with her, and breadcrumbing my way to discovering a deadly necromantic artifact. 2016, Domino Finn, Heart Strings:
    • An alternate reality game—ARG—is an interactive narrative that uses the real world as its media platform and uses storytelling “bread-crumbed” across several media to deliver a story that is altered and impacted in real time by the participants' ideas and actions (Dena, 2008; Denward & Waern, 2008; Werner, 2008). 2016, Artur Lugmayr, Cinzia Dal Zotto, Media Convergence Handbook - Vol. 2: Firms and User Perspectives, →ISBN:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
breadcrumbing Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
breadcrumbs Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic
bread crumb alternative lexicographic
breadcrumbed Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
breadcrumbed Tense=Past lexicographic

Deriveds

breadcrumb up

Translations (10)

ko 빵가루를 뿌리다 (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food) · pl posypywać bułką tartą (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food) · ja パン粉を撒く (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food) · pl posypać bułką tartą (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food) · fi leivittää (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food) · cmn 撒麵包屑 /撒面包屑 (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food) · hu bepaníroz (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food) · sl panirati (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food) · ca empanar (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food) · hu paníroz (to sprinkle breadcrumbs on food)

wikipedia: Hansel and Gretel