# What does ‘bring home the bacon’ mean?

To “bring home the bacon” means to earn a living; succeed. A modern American idiom; the popular Dunmow flitch story (a side of bacon awarded to a couple who never quarrelled) is discussed in Brewer's but is not the direct source of this 20th-century financial sense.

## What it means

- A modern American idiom; the popular Dunmow flitch story (a side of bacon awarded to a couple who never quarrelled) is discussed in Brewer's but is not the direct source of this 20th-century financial sense.

## Action steps

1. Common in casual talk about earning.
2. Example: She's the one who brings home the bacon.

## Sources

- [Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898) — Internet Archive scan](https://archive.org/details/brewers-dictionary-of-phrase-and-fable)

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