hleb

Hleb is the transliteration commonly used in English for the Cyrillic word хлеб, which means bread in several Slavic languages. The term is found in Russian хлеб (khleb), Ukrainian хліб (khlib), Belarusian хлеб (khleb), Polish chleb, Czech chléb, and Serbo-Croatian hleb. As a staple food, bread holds a central place in many cultures and appears in idioms and proverbs such as daily bread. The word descends from Proto-Slavic *hlěbъ and has cognates across Slavic languages, reflecting a shared culinary and cultural heritage.

Hleb is also a surname in Slavic-speaking regions. Notable individuals with this surname include Alexander Hleb (born 1981), a Belarusian former professional footballer who played as a midfielder for clubs such as Stuttgart, Arsenal, and Barcelona. The surname can appear in different transliterations, with "Khleb" being another common rendering in some languages; in English-language media the form "Hleb" is standard.

In addition to its use as a common noun and a surname, Hleb does not denote a widely recognized place, organization, or concept outside of linguistic and biographical contexts. The word’s primary significance today remains its identity as the word for bread in several languages and as a family name carried by a number of individuals in the Slavic world.