underbred

[uhn-der-bred]

adjective

1. having inferior breeding or manners; vulgar.

2. not of pure breed, as a horse.

underbred

/ ˌʌndəˈbrɛd /

adjective

1. of impure stock; not thoroughbred

2. a less common word for ill-bred

Other Word Forms

• underbreeding noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of underbred¹

First recorded in 1640–50; under- + bred

Example Sentences

“An illiterate, underbred book it seems to me: the book of a self-taught working man, & we all know how distressing they are, how egotistic, insistent, raw, striking & ultimately nauseating.”

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Or ‘Now I’d better darn my brown stockings,’ ” and it is characteristic that the word she should find to express her critical reservations about “Ulysses” is “underbred.”

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Virginia Woolf called it an “illiterate, underbred” book.

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“Genius it has I think; but of the inferior water… . It is underbred, not only in the obvious sense, but in the literary sense.”

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He had looked to find her one of two things; either flashy and underbred, with every fault an Englishman might consider French, or a nice mixture of craft and servility.

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