So according to Merriam Webster bread is: a usually baked and leavened food made of a mixture whose basic constituent is flour or meal
And cake is: A: a breadlike food made from a dough or batter that is usually fried or baked in small flat shapes and is often unleavened B: a sweet baked food made from a dough or thick batter usually containing flour and sugar and often shortening, eggs, and a raising agent (such as baking powder)
And yet some people don’t think that cake is bread.
What’s your opinion?
If you google the question, you’ll get lots of people saying that cake isn’t bread, despite being similar.
You asked the question, “is a cake a sort of bread” and the dictionary is explicitly stating “cake is a breadlike food”.
Are you instead asking if “lots of people” is a more reliable source than the dictionary?
Something can be breadlike without being bread, in a similar way to how whales are fishlike without being fish.
The dictionary doesn’t dictate how words should be used; it reports how people use them. Consulting a dictionary is a way to find out how “lots of people” use a word.
No but like something being bread like doesn’t mean that it is bread, just similar to bread.
I think it’s that people like certain levels of specificness. Like, bread, pizza, and broccoli are all foods, but if you said “I had a food for lunch” that’d sound weird.
It’s not necessarily that cake isn’t a type of bread or that the two aren’t closely related. It’s that we have a super-common and more specific word for it (cake) so it sounds awkward when you use a different word that might be technically accurate, but is a weird choice in practice.
Same for a lot of things. A hot dog and a sub are technically the same thing. But if a waiter dropped off your hot dog and said “here’s your pork sub”, you’d probably look at them funny.