ill-bred
Americanadjective
adjective
Other Word Forms
- ill-breeding noun
Etymology
Origin of ill-bred
First recorded in 1615–25
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.
She stooped to pick them up, and as she handed them to me I saw a little smile of scorn upon her lips, and I guessed at once she considered me ill-bred.
From Literature
“The People are ungrammatical, untidy, and their sins gaunt and ill-bred,” Whitman acknowledged, but not without the faith that the “miracle” of original identity, the “luminousness of real vision,” is within everyone’s grasp.
From Salon
An ill-bred falcon, who was subject to the vice of screaming, stood hooded and motionless on a perch like a parrot’s, brooding in some ancestral nightmare.
From Literature
If mirrors and windows had 3-D offspring, they might be the ill-bred second cousins of Alexander’s fantastic sculptures.
From Los Angeles Times
“There is nothing more ill-bred than trying to steal the affections of one’s dog.”
From Washington Times
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.
