What do you call the end of a loaf of bread? There are lots of terms for that last piece, including heel, bread butt, the outsider, the nose, bunce, tumpee, skalk, krunka, or in Spanish codo, meaning “elbow.” Sue in Singer’s Glen, Virginia, calls it the cubble, but that may well be particular to her own family. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Other Names for the Heel of a Loaf of Bread”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Sue Gere from Singers Glen.
Hi, Sue. Singers Glen where?
Virginia.
Oh, excellent.
Welcome. What can we do for you?
I’m curious to know about a word that my father always used,
And then my sister reminded me also my mother used,
And that’s what you call the end piece of the loaf of bread.
We always refer to it as the cobble.
I never really thought much about it.
It wasn’t until I was older and married and somehow that came up and said,
Oh, well, you don’t eat the cobble?
And he’s like, what are you talking about?
And he’s like, oh, you mean the heel of the bread?
I never heard that word.
Wow, cobble.
I have to confess I’ve never heard that used for the end of a loaf of bread.
There are lots and lots and lots of terms.
Have you heard that one, Grant?
No, so that’s, Sue, that’s C-U-B-B-L-E?
I assume that’s the way it is.
It’s nothing that I had spelled.
We didn’t have that as a spelling word in class or anything.
No, that’s a new one on me, but lots of people have family words for that.
Absolutely.
For the end of the loaf, the last piece.
The heel is the usual word in the United States.
Correct.
A lot of them have to do with parts of the body, like Grant mentioned the heel.
Some people call it the bread butt or the nose.
Oh, right.
Elbow.
Yeah, in Spanish the word is codo, which means elbow.
There are a lot of family words, as Grant mentioned, like bunts and tumpy.
And then there are words that come from people’s different heritages, like skulk,
Which comes from Norwegian for the end of the loaf of bread.
So you have terms like bunts and skirk and krunka and truna and tumpy and canoes.
One of my favorites is from Scotland.
In Scotland, some people call it the outsider or the outsider.
Oh, well, maybe it’s like, you know, everybody has their own name for when they were a kid,
What their bottle was or their blankie, you know, your nunny.
Yeah.
Yeah, that may have been what happened in your family.
I guess so, yeah.
Yeah, we’re just not coming up with anything that sounds like cobble.
But you can have it, and you can be yours, and you can love it.
Thank you.
And I will eat it.
Thank you for calling.
You’re welcome.
Thank you.
All righty.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
What do you call the end of a loaf of bread, that one piece?
Is it the butt, the heels, something else?
Let us know, 877-929-9673 or words@waywordradio.org.
