[syn: reproduction, procreation, breeding, facts of life]
ADJECTIVE (1)
1. producing offspring or set aside especially for producing offspring;
- Example: "the breeding population"
- Example: "retained a few bulls for breeding purposes"
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Breed \Breed\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bred; p. pr. & vb. n.
Breeding.] [OE. breden, AS. br[=e]dan to nourish, cherish,
keep warm, from br[=o]d brood; akin to D. broeden to brood,
OHG. bruoten, G. br["u]ten. See Brood.]
1. To produce as offspring; to bring forth; to bear; to
procreate; to generate; to beget; to hatch.
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Yet every mother breeds not sons alike. --Shak.
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If the sun breed maggots in a dead dog. --Shak.
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2. To take care of in infancy, and through the age of youth;
to bring up; to nurse and foster.
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To bring thee forth with pain, with care to breed.
--Dryden.
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Born and bred on the verge of the wilderness.
--Everett.
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3. To educate; to instruct; to form by education; to train;
-- sometimes followed by up.
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But no care was taken to breed him a Protestant.
--Bp. Burnet.
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His farm may not remove his children too far from
him, or the trade he breeds them up in. --Locke.
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4. To engender; to cause; to occasion; to originate; to
produce; as, to breed a storm; to breed disease.
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Lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment. --Milton.
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5. To give birth to; to be the native place of; as, a pond
breeds fish; a northern country breeds stout men.
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6. To raise, as any kind of stock.
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7. To produce or obtain by any natural process. [Obs.]
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Children would breed their teeth with less danger.
--Locke.
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Syn: To engender; generate; beget; produce; hatch; originate;
bring up; nourish; train; instruct.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Breeding \Breed"ing\, n.
1. The act or process of generating or bearing.
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2. The raising or improving of any kind of domestic animals;
as, farmers should pay attention to breeding.
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3. Nurture; education; formation of manners.
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She had her breeding at my father's charge. --Shak.
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4. Deportment or behavior in the external offices and
decorums of social life; manners; knowledge of, or
training in, the ceremonies, or polite observances of
society.
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Delicacy of breeding, or that polite deference and
respect which civility obliges us either to express
or counterfeit towards the persons with whom we
converse. --Hume.
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5. Descent; pedigree; extraction. [Obs.]
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Honest gentlemen, I know not your breeding. --Shak.
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Close breeding, In and in breeding, breeding from a male
and female from the same parentage.
Cross breeding, breeding from a male and female of
different lineage.
Good breeding, politeness; genteel deportment.
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Syn: Education; instruction; nurture; training; manners. See
Education.
[1913 Webster] Breeze
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
breeding
adj 1: producing offspring or set aside especially for producing
offspring; "the breeding population"; "retained a few
bulls for breeding purposes"
n 1: elegance by virtue of fineness of manner and expression
[syn: breeding, genteelness, gentility]
2: the result of good upbringing (especially knowledge of
correct social behavior); "a woman of breeding and
refinement" [syn: education, training, breeding]
3: helping someone grow up to be an accepted member of the
community; "they debated whether nature or nurture was more
important" [syn: breeding, bringing up, fostering,
fosterage, nurture, raising, rearing, upbringing]
4: the production of animals or plants by inbreeding or
hybridization
5: the sexual activity of conceiving and bearing offspring [syn:
reproduction, procreation, breeding, facts of life]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
115 Moby Thesaurus words for "breeding":
alpha decay, animal husbandry, animal rearing, apprenticeship,
atom-chipping, atom-smashing, atomic disintegration,
atomic reaction, atomization, basic training, bee culture,
beekeeping, begetting, beta decay, bombardment, breaking, bullet,
cattle-ranching, chain reaction, chicken-farming, civility,
cleavage, conditioning, courtesy, crossbreeding, cultivation,
culture, dairy-farming, development, discipline,
disintegration series, dissociation, dissogeny, dressage, drill,
drilling, elegance, endogamy, engenderment, exchange reaction,
exercise, fetching-up, fission, fission reaction, fostering,
gamma decay, generation, genteelness, gentility, gentlemanlikeness,
gentlemanliness, gentleness, gnotobiotics, good behavior,
good breeding, good manners, grace, grazing, grooming, herding,
horse training, horsemanship, housebreaking, improvement,
in-service training, inbreeding, ionization, ladylikeness,
linebreeding, manual training, military training, mink-ranching,
multiplication, neutron reaction, nonreversible reaction,
nuclear fission, nucleization, nurture, nurturing,
on-the-job training, outbreeding, photodisintegration, pig-keeping,
polish, politeness, politesse, practice, preparation, procreation,
proliferation, propagation, proton gun, proton reaction, raising,
readying, rearing, refinement, rehearsal, reversible reaction,
sheepherding, sloyd, splitting the atom, stimulation,
stock raising, stockbreeding, target, thermonuclear reaction,
thremmatology, training, upbringing, vocational education,
vocational training, xenogamy, zootechnics, zootechny