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Breeding

 - 6 dictionary results

breed⋅ing

[bree-ding]
–noun
1. the producing of offspring.
2. the improvement or development of breeds of livestock, as by selective mating and hybridization.
3. Horticulture. the production of new forms by selection, crossing, and hybridizing.
4. training; nurture: He is a man of good breeding.
5. the result of upbringing or training as shown in behavior and manners; manners, esp. good manners: You can tell when a person has breeding.
6. Energy. the production in a nuclear reactor of more fissile material than is consumed.

Origin:
1250–1300; ME; see breed, -ing 1

breed

[breed] verb, bred, breed⋅ing, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. to produce (offspring); procreate; engender.
2. to produce by mating; propagate sexually; reproduce: Ten mice were bred in the laboratory.
3. Horticulture.
a. to cause to reproduce by controlled pollination.
b. to improve by controlled pollination and selection.
4. to raise (cattle, sheep, etc.): He breeds longhorns on the ranch.
5. to cause or be the source of; engender; give rise to: Dirt breeds disease. Stagnant water breeds mosquitoes.
6. to develop by training or education; bring up; rear: He was born and bred a gentleman.
7. Energy. to produce more fissile nuclear fuel than is consumed in a reactor.
8. to impregnate; mate: Breed a strong mare with a fast stallion and hope for a Derby winner.
–verb (used without object)
9. to produce offspring: Many animals breed in the spring.
10. to be engendered or produced; grow; develop: Bacteria will not breed in alcohol.
11. to cause the birth of young, as in raising stock.
12. to be pregnant.
–noun
13. Genetics. a relatively homogenous group of animals within a species, developed and maintained by humans.
14. lineage; stock; strain: She comes from a fine breed of people.
15. sort; kind; group: Scholars are a quiet breed.
16. Offensive. half-breed (def. 2).

Origin:
bef. 1000; ME breden, OE brēdan to nourish (c. OHG bruotan, G brüten); n. use from 16th century


breed⋅a⋅ble, adjective


1, 2. beget, bear, generate. 5. promote, occasion, foster, produce, induce, develop. 14. family, pedigree, line.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To Breeding
breed   (brēd)   
v.   bred (brěd), breed·ing, breeds

v.   tr.
  1. To produce (offspring); give birth to or hatch.

  2. To bring about; engender: "Admission of guilt tends to breed public sympathy" (Jonathan Alter).

    1. To cause to reproduce, especially by controlled mating and selection: breed cattle.

    2. To develop new or improved strains in (organisms), chiefly through controlled mating and selection of offspring for desirable traits.

    3. To inseminate or impregnate; mate with.

  3. To rear or train; bring up: a writer who was bred in a seafaring culture.

  4. To be the place of origin of: Austria breeds great skiers.

  5. To produce (fissionable material) in a breeder reactor.

v.   intr.
  1. To produce offspring.

  2. To copulate; mate.

  3. To originate and develop: Mischief breeds in bored minds.

n.  
  1. A group of organisms having common ancestors and certain distinguishable characteristics, especially a group within a species developed by artificial selection and maintained by controlled propagation.

  2. A kind; a sort: a new breed of politician; a new breed of computer.

  3. Offensive A person of mixed racial descent; a half-breed.


[Middle English breden, from Old English brēdan; see bhreu- in Indo-European roots.]
breed·ing   (brē'dĭng)   
n.  
  1. One's line of descent; ancestry: a person of noble breeding.

  2. Training in the proper forms of social and personal conduct.

  3. Production of offspring or young.

  4. The propagation of animals or plants.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

breed 
O.E. bredan "bring young to birth, carry," also "cherish, keep warm," from W.Gmc. *brodjan (cf. O.H.G. bruoten, Ger. brüten "to brood, hatch"), from *brod- "fetus, hatchling," from PIE *bhre- "burn, heat" (see brood). Original notion of the word was incubation, warming to hatch. Breeding "good manners" is from 1596. Breeder scornful homosexual term for "heterosexual person," attested from 1986.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: 2breed
Function: noun
: a group of animals or plants presumably related by descent from common ancestors and visibly similar in most characters;especially : such a group differentiated from the wild type under domestication
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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