upbringing

American  

[uhp-bring-ing] / ˈʌpˌbrɪŋ ɪŋ /

noun

1. the care and training of young children or a particular type of such care and training.

   His religious upbringing fitted him to be a missionary.

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upbringing British  

/ ˈʌpˌbrɪŋɪŋ /

noun

1. Also called: bringing-up.  the education of a person during his formative years

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Etymology

Origin of upbringing

First recorded in 1475–85; gerund of upbring “to rear children” (obsolete since the 16th century)

Explanation

Your upbringing is how you were raised as a child. You might have had a rough upbringing or a gentler one, but at least you made it this far. Looking at the base “bring” in upbringing, we find a Germanic origin meaning "to carry." You might consider the "carry" idea as a way to remember the word, considering a parent "carries" a child to adulthood, providing what then becomes the child’s upbringing.

Example Sentences

Kim Il Sung’s upbringing gave the young man a front-row seat to the power of faith—its power to mobilize and inspire awe, devotion, fear or zeal.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 11, 2026

His dual nationality and peripatetic, bi-cultural upbringing, combined with travel grants in 1927 and 1949 that took him all over Europe, Asia and North Africa, produced arguably the most cosmopolitan artist of his generation.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 8, 2026

Your upbringing taught you a lot about life, and you learned the value of hard work and patience and stamina and consistency by buying and selling homes and building a $6 million nest egg.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 6, 2026

But her upbringing was not just among books.

From BBC • Mar. 26, 2026

Odile did not mind this predilection, seeing that it went along with, and probably helped, his emancipation from the dullness of his Northampton upbringing.

From "Double Helix" by James D. Watson