DCHP-2

brekkie brekky DCHP-2 (July 2016)

• n. — informal, diminutive

  breakfast; the first meal eaten in the morning (see Image 1).

  Type: 5. Frequency — A diminutive and short form of "breakfast". One of the first attested uses in Canada was in a limerick (see the 1929 quotation). However, it appears that the term was not used much beyond the limerick until the early 1980s (see the 1981 quotation). In Australia, brekkie/brekky was frequently used throughout the 1900s (and less frequently in Britain) and suggests that the term is a preservation of the original Australian English term. The term is Canadian only in comparison to the US data, which shows a third of the frequency found in Canada. Canada is a popular destination for Australian and New Zealand young adults, facilitated by Commonwealth employment regulations. Brekkie is most frequently used in Australia (see Chart 1) but has been adopted in informal Canadian English. In Canada, the term is most frequently used in Nova Scotia and Ontario (see Chart 2). In Nova Scotia, it may not be the result of Australian influence, as few Australian go to Nova Scotia. There, it is possibly a dialectological and independent development.
  See also COD-2, s.v. "brekkie", which is marked "Cdn, Brit., & Austral. slang", and OED-3, s.v. "brekkie" (n.).