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
-
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
-
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
-
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
At home with a new breed of African art collectors who incorporate its stately exoticism into decor from midcentury design to more formal period looks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 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
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
Start distributing the second-line antibiotics in settings like these and you’d breed resistant strains that no drugs could cure, critics said.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
Certain breeds are predisposed to heart or orthopedic issues, for example, that can be expensive to treat.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 15, 2026
The sanctuary’s mission is to conserve and protect the world’s wild cat populations and, sometimes, in partnership with zoos and other humane wildlife facilities, it breeds certain species.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 27, 2026
Tyson, the biggest U.S. chicken processor, has struggled in the past with breeds that produced unexpectedly high numbers of unhatched eggs.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 2026
Researchers have identified genes in Tibetan dogs that allow them to function in oxygen-poor conditions that would challenge breeds from lower elevations.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 10, 2026
Emma jumped up like she sat on a tack and said, “Sir, it says, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt,’ sir.”
From "Elijah of Buxton" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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
Golden retrievers were bred by aristocrat Sir Dudley Marjoribanks, who wanted a gun dog suited to Scottish Highland terrain.
From BBC ● Sep. 3, 2026
He bred short-tall hybrids with short-tall hybrids to produce third-generation progeny.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
“It’s a great breeding ground for this new filmmaking,” Dave Clark, cofounder of AI film production studio Promise, said about Culver City.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2026
Precision breeding and artificial intelligence may provide additional ways to redesign HMA domains, allowing them to recognize pathogen molecules that previously escaped detection.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 15, 2026
Barn owls are a Schedule 1 breeding species, meaning it is illegal to disturb them during the breeding season without a licence.
From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026
Between 2021 and 2022, Paxton purchased two homes in Ocala, known for its horse breeding industry, and a townhome in Dunedin, on the Gulf of Mexico near Tampa.
From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2026
In addition, the breeding industry was potentially profitable, adding considerably to the value of horses.
From "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
