breadbasket

noun

1. A basket used for storing or carrying bread.

   “In theſe eaſtern countries they eat upon the plain ground, and when it is dinner-time they ſpread a round piece of leather, and lay about it tapeſtry, and ſometimes cuſhions, whereupon they ſit croſs-leg'd before they begin to eat, […] At laſt they take up the leathern table with bread and all, which ſerveth them alſo inſtead of a table-cloth and bread-basket, they draw it together with a ſtring lik a purſe, and hang it up in the next corner.”

   “One of the servants went to a bread-basket there, and finding the damask napkin eaten away, she was led to see if any mouse-holes were to be seen: for this purpose she removed the bread-basket, and behind it she saw a bundle of something that looked very like white cotton; she touched it, and out jumped the little dormouse.”

   “Everything was impeccably organized for the dinner. Platters and salad bowls, bread baskets, pumpkin pies. The oven gave off a mouthwatering smell as we sat on a couple of high stools beneath the hanging pans.”

2. A region which has favourable conditions to produce a large quantity of grain or, by extension, other food products; a food bowl.

   “[I]t is worth noting that if global warming produces a migration of the earth's breadbaskets, then it might damage one country's agriculture, while benefiting another's.”

   “Canada at the turn of the century had become the breadbasket of the British Empire and industrialised Europe and wheat grown on the prairies was consolidated in elevator at Fort William, Ontario to await shipment overseas.”

3. (humorous)The abdomen or stomach, especially as a vulnerable part of the body in an attack.

   “Tom Oliver thought he'd a very heavy stake in this here affair, as he was to fight Shelton, on the 23d, for a hundred. […] (Give it them, Tom! hit them in the bread-basket!)”

   “[S]ince you've been ill I've been eating your pork and drinking your grog, which latter can't be too plentiful in the Bay of Biscay. And now that I've cured you, you'll be tucking all that into your own little breadbasket, so that I'm no gainer, […]”