GNU Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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Found 3 definitions

1.       
   Breed , v. t. [imp. & p. p. Bred ; p. pr. & vb. n. Breeding.] [OE. breden, AS. brēdan to nourish, cherish, keep warm, from brōd brood; akin to D. broeden to brood, OHG. bruoten, G. brüten. See Brood.]
   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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   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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   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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   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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   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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   To raise, as any kind of stock.
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   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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2.       
   Breed, v. i.
   To bear and nourish young; to reproduce or multiply itself; to be pregnant.
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   That they breed abundantly in the earth.
   Gen. viii. 17.
   
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   The mother had never bred before.
   Carpenter.
   
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   Ant. Is your gold and silver ewes and rams?
   Shy. I can not tell. I make it breed as fast.
   Shak.
   
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   To be formed in the parent or dam; to be generated, or to grow, as young before birth.
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   To have birth; to be produced or multiplied.
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   Heavens rain grace
   On that which breeds between them.
   Shak.
   
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   To raise a breed; to get progeny.
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   The kind of animal which you wish to breed from.
   Gardner.
   
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   To breed in and in, to breed from animals of the same stock that are closely related.
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3.       
   Breed, n.
   A race or variety of men or other animals (or of plants), perpetuating its special or distinctive characteristics by inheritance.
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   Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England's breed.
   Shak.
   
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   Greyhounds of the best breed.
   Carpenter.
   
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   Class; sort; kind; -- of men, things, or qualities.
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   Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?
   Shak.
   
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   This courtesy is not of the right breed.
   Shak.
   
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   A number produced at once; a brood. [Obs.]
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   ☞ Breed is usually applied to domestic animals; species or variety to wild animals and to plants; and race to men.
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