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outbreed

American  
[out-breed] / ˌaʊtˈbrid /

verb (used with object)

outbred, outbreeding
  1. to breed selected individuals outside the limits of the breed or variety.


outbreed British  
/ ˌaʊtˈbriːd /

verb

  1. (intr) anthropol to produce offspring through sexual relations outside a particular family or tribe

  2. to breed (animals that are not closely related) or (of such animals) to be bred

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of outbreed

out- + breed

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:

Do genetically altered crops "outbreed" with wild relatives and other plants?

From Time Magazine Archive

Both Lamarckians and Weismannists, not to mention mankind in general, admit that the better adapted to its surroundings a living form may be, the more likely it is to outbreed its compeers. 

From The Humour of Homer and Other Essays by Streatfeild, R. A. (Richard Alexander)

In endogamous populations, such variants can occur 100 to 1,000 times as often as in more outbred populations, shortening the time and cost required to find them.

From The Wall Street Journal Mar. 12, 2026

Working sled dogs are typically outbred, or produced by pairing parent dogs that are genetically unlike, for speed and endurance.

From Scientific American Apr. 27, 2023

Being the product of generations of mating of different kinds of dogs, Balto and his peers were much more outbred and had more genetic variation and fewer harmful genes than modern dog breeds.

From Science Magazine Apr. 26, 2023

The “lack of any reliable evidence of mitochondrial–nuclear interaction as a cause of disease in human outbred populations”, they wrote, “provides the necessary reassurance to proceed”.

From Nature Sep. 22, 2015

In areas where there were only hunter-gatherers to begin with, those groups of hunter-gatherers who adopted food production outbred those who didn’t.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

"It's actually quite a hard thing to demonstrate the effects of outbreeding," Bowie emphasized.

From Science Daily Jan. 24, 2024

In the case of the Savannah sparrow, such outbreeding reduced adaptation to the environment.

From Science Daily Jan. 24, 2024

Thanks to this and other conservation efforts like those at the Oakland Zoo's outbreeding program and the Department of the Interior's Bison Working Group, the North American population is slowly rebounding.

From Salon Aug. 30, 2023

The due adjustment of inbreeding and outbreeding is always a difficult problem of policy for breeders of animals.

From Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals by Sumner, William Graham

If so, there would be a school in which the advantages of outbreeding would appear as a fact, although not explained.

From Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals by Sumner, William Graham

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