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breed

verbnouncommon in dialogue

  • //ˈbɹiːd//
  • /[ˈbɹʷɪi̯d]/

To produce offspring sexually; to bear young.

verb

  1. 1

    To produce offspring sexually; to bear young.

    Plant breeding is always a numbers game.[…]The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, and individual plants are highly heterozygous and do not breed true. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better.

  2. 2

    To give birth to; to be the native place of.

    A pond breeds fish.

    A northern country breeds stout men.

    Yet every mother breeds not sons alike.

  3. 3

    To mate.

  4. 4

    To keep (animals) and have (them) reproduce in a way that improves the next generation's qualities.

  5. 5

    To arrange the mating of (specific animals).

    She wanted to breed her cow to the neighbor's registered bull.

  6. 6

    To propagate or grow (plants) in an effort to give (them) certain qualities.

    He tries to breed blue roses.

  7. 7

    To take care of in infancy and through childhood; to bring up.

    born and bred

    Ah wretched me! by fates averſe, decreed, / To bring thee forth with pain, with care to breed!

    born and bred on the verge of the wilderness

  8. 8

    To yield or result in.

    disaster breeds famine

    familiarity breeds contempt

    lest the place / And my queint habits breed astonishment

  9. 9

    obsoleteTo be formed in the parent or dam; to be generated or to grow, like young before birth.

  10. 10

    To educate; to instruct; to bring up.

    No care was taken to breed him a Protestant.

    His farm may not […] remove his children too far from him, or the trade he breeds them up in.

  11. 11

    To produce or obtain by any natural process.

    Children would breed their teeth with much less danger.

  12. 12

    To have birth; to be produced, developed, or multiplied.

    Fair encounter Of two most rare affections! Heavens rain grace On that which breed between 'em!

  13. 13

    slangTo ejaculate inside (a person or a bodily orifice of same); to creampie.

    2018, Cassandra Dee, Paying My Boyfriend's Debt: A Billionaire Bad Boy Romance, Cassandra Dee Romance via PublishDrive “God, I love your ass,” he says, his voice almost a growl. “I'm gonna breed this ass tonight.”

    “ Yes,” I said. “You want to fuck me, and I submit to you. My body is yours. Stuff me. Fill me. Breed my ass. Seed me, my love.

    Then...you get...bred.

    “I can't...can't last, baby.” / “I don't care. Come inside me. Breed me.”

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English breden, from Old English brēdan, from Proto-Germanic *brōdijaną (“to brood”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreh₁- (“warm”). Cognate with Scots brede, breid, Saterland Frisian briede, West Frisian briede, Low German bröden, Dutch broeden, German brüten.

noun

  1. 1

    All animals or plants of the same species or subspecies.

    a breed of tulip

    a breed of animal

  2. 2

    A race or lineage; offspring or issue.

    And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

  3. 3

    informalA group of people with shared characteristics.

    People who were taught classical Greek and Latin at school are a dying breed.

  4. 4

    Variant of half-breedEllipsis of half-breed.

    I understood what Aurelia meant though—I was light, clearly a breed.

    […] you stinking breed!" he answered through gritted teeth. John leaned down and placed the barrel of his six-gun hard against one of Dunlap's eyes.

Forms

plural
breeds
past tense
bred
past participle
bred
present participle
breeding
third person singular
breeds
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).