interbreed
Americanverb (used with object)
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to crossbreed (a plant or animal).
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to cause to breed together.
verb (used without object)
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to crossbreed.
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to breed or mate with a closely related individual, as in a small, closed population.
verb
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(intr) to breed within a single family or strain so as to produce particular characteristics in the offspring
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another term for crossbreed
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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interbreedsimple
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interbreedssimple
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have interbredperfect
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has interbredperfect
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am interbreedingprogressive
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are interbreedingprogressive
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is interbreedingprogressive
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have been interbreedingperfect progressive
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has been interbreedingperfect progressive
Past
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interbredsimple
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had interbredperfect
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was interbreedingprogressive
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were interbreedingprogressive
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had been interbreedingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of interbreed
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:
Scientists also found little evidence that wrens from Shetland and St Kilda regularly interbreed with mainland populations.
From Science Daily ● May 28, 2026
The two owls are closely related; they are similar in appearance and the birds can even interbreed.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 4, 2025
"Over time we are going to have this entire lineage of cold adapted elephants that we can put back into the wild that can interbreed"
From BBC ● Mar. 4, 2025
These two broods may actually overlap — but probably not interbreed — in a small area near central Illinois, entomologists said.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 1, 2024
But if wild populations with variations in genotype keep interbreeding, Dobzhansky knew, a new species would never be formed: a species, after all, is fundamentally defined by its inability to interbreed with another.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Some naturalists would separate them from the other cats, but the connection is supplied by the last species which, though possessing certain features of the lynx, yet interbreeds with the true cats.
From Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon by Sterndale, Robert Armitage
It interbreeds in Siberia with C. caniceps, an East Siberian form.
From The History of the European Fauna by Scharff, Robert Francis
Gavæus frontalis interbreeds freely with domesticated cattle of all kinds.
From Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon by Sterndale, Robert Armitage
In 2010 scientists reconstructed the Neanderthal genome -- blockbuster research that allowed for analysis making clear that the species interbred.
From Barron's ● Feb. 26, 2026
Those first modern humans that had interbred with Neanderthals and lived alongside them died out completely in Europe 40,000 years ago - but not before their offspring had spread further out into the world.
From BBC ● Dec. 12, 2024
This means Thorin's genome was full of the variants one usually sees with recent inbreeding, a striking feature given other modern humans lived nearby with whom Thorin's Neanderthal community could have interbred.
From Salon ● Sep. 14, 2024
Between 2009 and 2018, the researchers interbred the butterflies and recorded how traits such as wing shape and the chemical makeup of sex pheromones changed in the resulting offspring.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 17, 2024
Moreover, the black fowls obtained in this way will, when interbred, produce only black offspring and the same is true of the white fowls.
From Being Well-Born An Introduction to Eugenics by Guyer, Michael F.
But over hundreds of millennia, human migrations resulted in interbreeding, researchers say.
From Barron's ● Feb. 26, 2026
"Are they co-operative, is there interbreeding, are the locals able to make their way into the elite?"
From BBC ● Jan. 1, 2025
But whether that interbreeding was critical to H. elevatus separating from H. pardalinus and becoming its own distinct species was a mystery.
From Science Magazine ● Apr. 17, 2024
Continued interbreeding between hatchery-origin and natural-origin salmon could contribute to a decline in overall fitness for the natural-origin fish, unless the level of interbreeding is carefully managed, she said.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 16, 2024
For a new species to arise, then, some factor must arise that makes interbreeding impossible.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
