underbred
Americanadjective
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having inferior breeding or manners; vulgar.
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not of pure breed, as a horse.
adjective
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of impure stock; not thoroughbred
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a less common word for ill-bred
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of underbred
Vocabulary lists containing underbred
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.
“It is underbred, not only in the obvious sense, but in the literary sense.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
She caught him by the collar, looking straight at the exceptionally handsome man with the underbred blaze of yellow on his shirt-front: "Down! down, sir!—You had better go back," to Mr. Van Ness.
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 20, September, 1877. by Various
For if one gets a really good fencer and galloper this size, he is far better than a big underbred horse that tires one out immediately.
From Ladies in the Field: Sketches of Sport by Beatrice Violet Graham Greville
Why, on top of her experience of bearleading a brace of utterly uninteresting and unengaging children—and being at the beck and call of their detestable underbred mother, this was ideal.
From The Heath Hover Mystery by Bertram Mitford
Mrs. Smythe’s abrupt remark jarred upon them, and simultaneously it occurred to them that she was distinctly underbred.
From The Automobile Girls at Palm Beach Proving Their Mettle Under Southern Skies by Laura Dent Crane
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.
