breed
Americanverb (used with object)
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breeds,
present (3rd person singular)
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bred,
past participle, past
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breeding
present participle
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to produce (offspring); procreate; engender.
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to produce by mating; propagate sexually; reproduce.
Ten mice were bred in the laboratory.
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Horticulture.
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to cause to reproduce by controlled pollination.
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to improve by controlled pollination and selection.
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to raise (cattle, sheep, etc.).
He breeds longhorns on the ranch.
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to cause or be the source of; engender; give rise to.
Dirt breeds disease. Stagnant water breeds mosquitoes.
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to develop by training or education; bring up; rear.
He was born and bred a gentleman.
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Energy. to produce more fissile nuclear fuel than is consumed in a reactor.
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to impregnate; mate.
Breed a strong mare with a fast stallion and hope for a Derby winner.
verb (used without object)
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breeds,
present (3rd person singular)
-
bred,
past participle, past
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breeding
present participle
-
to produce offspring.
Many animals breed in the spring.
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to be engendered or produced; grow; develop.
Bacteria will not breed in alcohol.
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to cause the birth of young, as in raising stock.
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to be pregnant.
noun
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breeds
plural
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Genetics. a relatively homogenous group of animals within a species, developed and maintained by humans.
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lineage; stock; strain.
She comes from a fine breed of people.
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sort; kind; group.
Scholars are a quiet breed.
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Disparaging and Offensive. half-breed.
verb
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to bear (offspring)
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(tr) to bring up; raise
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to produce or cause to produce by mating; propagate
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to produce and maintain new or improved strains of (domestic animals and plants)
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to produce or be produced; generate
to breed trouble
violence breeds in densely populated areas
noun
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a group of organisms within a species, esp a group of domestic animals, originated and maintained by man and having a clearly defined set of characteristics
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a lineage or race
a breed of Europeans
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a kind, sort, or group
a special breed of hatred
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To produce or reproduce by giving birth or hatching.
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To raise animals or plants, often to produce new or improved types.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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breedsimple
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breedssimple
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have bredperfect
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has bredperfect
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am breedingprogressive
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are breedingprogressive
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is breedingprogressive
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have been breedingperfect progressive
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has been breedingperfect progressive
Past
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bredsimple
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had bredperfect
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was breedingprogressive
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were breedingprogressive
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had been breedingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of breed
before 1000; Middle English breden, Old English brēdan to nourish (cognate with Old High German bruotan, German brüten ); noun use from 16th century
Explanation
To breed is to have babies, whether you’re a human or a hermit crab. A breed is also a specific type of a domesticated species, like a poodle or Great Dane. The word breed comes from the Old English bredan which means to "bring young to birth," but also "cherish,” which is how most people feel about their offspring. Awwwww. But the fact is that breeding is reproducing. Also, a breed is a strain or stock of a species, such as a Siamese cat. There are many types of dog breeds, cow breeds, and even pig breeds. Members of a breed usually look and behave in a similar way.
Vocabulary lists containing breed
Word Generation Science - Life Science
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Genetics - Inheritance and Variation of Traits
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"A Modest Proposal," Vocabulary from the satire
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Emperor penguins rely on stable sea ice to live, hunt and breed and their chicks can perish if they fall in freezing water before developing waterproof feathers.
From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026
This latter stance can breed an idleness that, as we’ve now seen, ensures it may not happen at all.
From Slate ● Sep. 21, 2026
Streets are clotted with uncollected mountains of garbage, which breed clouds of mosquitoes that spread dengue and other diseases.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
In 1994, the New Yorker printed a piece headlined “Hot Pursuit” about this breed of journalists.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 16, 2026
The Vietnamese geek and the American geek are the same breed, containing the same amount of personality quirks you outlined in your articles.
From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz
Certain breeds are predisposed to heart or orthopedic issues, for example, that can be expensive to treat.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
The family say they are working alongside the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in a bid to remove "loopholes" from current legislation around banned dog breeds.
From BBC ● Sep. 4, 2026
During colonial expansion, European breeds spread across much of the world and replaced numerous older lineages.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026
Now she breeds her own yaks on 120 acres of pasture, foothills and mesa tops high in bucolic Ridgway, about 290 miles west of Denver.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2026
“The Little Pigeon breeds them,” Dick Straw informed them.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
They instead often raised expectations, forced dependency and gave rise to a vision of progress that reinforced social exclusion, bred anxieties about status, and concealed the environmental costs of a culture built on consumption.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
Chason Gordon investigates the rise of produce bred for perfection, and argues that there are unintended consequences to making fruit too delicious.
From Slate ● Sep. 23, 2026
A younger left, as the statement says at the beginning: “We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities . . .”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 14, 2026
Several British zoos are setting up so-called ark populations of the glutinous snail, one of Europe's rarest species, using creatures bred in a back garden in Ceredigion.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
A mystique built up around his calculus class—if you could make it through there, you had truly accomplished something spectacular, something no one thought you could do—and success bred more success.
From "Friday Night Lights: A Town, A Team, And A Dream" by H.G. Bissinger
Now, half of all U.S. adults under 50 get their wellness advice from social media, and that is a ripe breeding ground for private companies to market to audiences.
From Slate ● Oct. 8, 2026
Their population would be scattered in disconnected pockets, which reduces chances of breeding between groups and increases their risks of long-term decline or local extinction, which is already a threat, the study says.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
And in that humidity, mosquitoes were breeding — and biting.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2026
And without the latter, corporate messaging around efficiency and productivity is breeding more fears about job loss and leads to workers ignoring or rejecting AI tools.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
The sea is very clear and the bottom becomes fantastic with hurrying, fighting, feeding, breeding animals.
From "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
