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the back and sides of the hog, salted and dried or smoked, usually sliced thin and fried for food.
Also called white bacon. South Midland and Southern U.S. pork cured in brine; salt pork.
bring home the bacon,

to provide for material needs; earn a living.
to accomplish a task; be successful or victorious:
Our governor went to Washington to appeal for disaster relief and brought home the bacon—$40 million.

save one’s bacon, Informal. to allow one to accomplish a desired end; spare one from injury or loss:
Quick thinking saved our bacon.
Francis (Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans) 1561–1626, English essayist, philosopher, and statesman.
Francis, 1910–92, English painter, born in Ireland.
Henry, 1866–1924, U.S. architect.
Nathaniel, 1647–76, American colonist, born in England: leader of a rebellion in Virginia 1676.
Roger (“The Admirable Doctor”) 1214?–94? English philosopher and scientist.
Contemporary Examples

bacon coffee, bacon cereal, bacon ice cream—America, cut it out!
Stop the Bacon Insanity! Tim Love February 22, 2010

The phenomenon of women bringing home the bacon is nothing new.
Pew Study Shows Women Leading Breadwinners in 40 Percent of Households CNBC May 28, 2013

For Shakespeare, bacon, and the artists of the Renaissance, this is why Orpheus is important.
Ann Wroe’s ‘Orpheus’: Why the Mythological Muse Haunts Us Ann Wroe May 30, 2012

Pine nuts, bacon, soft-shell crab—these are the flavors of caterpillars, beetles, and tarantulas, if you can believe it.
Cicadas, Grasshoppers, Locusts, Ants Among the Tastiest Insects Nina Strochlic May 13, 2013

As he eats his way through the country’s bacon reserves, Fieri is not exactly an ambassador for health.
The Trailer Park Gourmet Rachel Syme November 9, 2009

Historical Examples

We can take bacon in jars, and rolls, and broil the bacon over a regular camp fire, suggested Connie.
Polly’s First Year at Boarding School Dorothy Whitehill

The filet can also be larded with bacon and cooked in butter and Marsala only.
The Italian Cook Book Maria Gentile

As bacon remarked, in this theatre of man’s life it is reserved only to God and angels to be lookers-on.
Essays Towards a Theory of Knowledge Alexander Philip

At fifteen bacon was sent to the university, and he spent three years there.
Is Shakespeare Dead? Mark Twain

Away from the settlements buffaloes still yielded much beef, bacon was made from bears, and venison was a staple commodity.
Daniel Boone Reuben Gold Thwaites

noun
meat from the back and sides of a pig, dried, salted, and usually smoked
(informal) bring home the bacon

to achieve success
to provide material support

(Brit, informal) save someone’s bacon, to help someone to escape from danger
noun
Francis, Baron Verulam, Viscount St Albans. 1561–1626, English philosopher, statesman, and essayist; described the inductive method of reasoning: his works include Essays (1625), The Advancement of Learning (1605), and Novum Organum (1620)
Francis. 1909–92, British painter, born in Dublin, noted for his distorted, richly coloured human figures, dogs, and carcasses
Roger. ?1214–92, English Franciscan monk, scholar, and scientist: stressed the importance of experiment, demonstrated that air is required for combustion, and first used lenses to correct vision. His Opus Majus (1266) is a compendium of all the sciences of his age
n.

early 14c., “meat from the back and sides of a pig” (originally either fresh or cured, but especially cured), from Old French bacon, from Proto-Germanic *bakkon “back meat” (cf. Old High German bahho, Old Dutch baken “bacon”). Slang phrase bring home the bacon first recorded 1908; bacon formerly being the staple meat of the working class.
Bacon
(bā’kən)
English scientist and philosopher who is noted for the wide range of his knowledge and writing on scientific topics. Bacon pioneered the idea that mathematics is fundamental to science and that experimentation is essential to test scientific theories.

Our Living Language : Roger Bacon was something of a Renaissance man before there was a Renaissance. Over the course of his long life, his energetic research would lead him to study everything from languages to mathematics to optics. He is most remembered for his insistence on the importance of pursuing fruitful lines of scientific research through experimentation. His writings describe countless experiments; while the majority were probably never performed by him, the profusion alone of experimental ideas is nothing short of astounding. His own laboratory work dealt primarily with alchemy, optics, and mechanics. He was among the first to apply geometric and mathematical principles to problems in optics and the behavior of light, allowing him to make important observations on reflection and refraction. His interest in mechanics led him to describe flying machines and other devices that had not yet been invented. He was the first person in the West to come up with a recipe for gunpowder, and he suggested reforms to the calendar, which would ultimately be implemented hundreds of years later. His novel ways of pursuing knowledge were sometimes viewed with suspicion, resulting at one time in imprisonment; but he bravely resisted all strictures on his intellectual life, even when that meant having to write and work in secret.

Related Terms

bring home the bacon
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bring home the bacon
save one’s bacon