Breed | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Breed, v. t.

verbtransitive

v. t. [imp. & p. p. BRED; p. pr. & vb. n. BREEDING.] [A-S. brēdan, to nourish, cherish, keep warm, D. broeden, O. H. Ger. pruotan, M. H. Ger. brüeten, N. H. Ger. brüten, to brood, hatch. Cf. W. brwd, hot, warm, brydian, to heat, inflame. See BROOD.]

Sense 1. To procreate; to generate; to engender; to beget; to hatch.

Yet every mother breeds not sons alike. Shak.

Sense 2. To take care of in infancy, and through the age of youth; to bring up; to nurse and foster.

To bring thee forth with pain, with care to breed. Dryden.

Born and bred on the verge of the wilderness. Everett.

Sense 3. To educate; to instruct; to form by education. “But no care was taken to breed him a Protestant.” Burnet. Sometimes followed by up.

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

O flowers, which I bred up with tender hand From the first opening bud. Milton.

Sense 4. To cause; to occasion; to produce; to originate.

Lest the place And my quaint habits breed astonishment. Milton.

Sense 5. To give birth to; to be the native place of; as, a pond breeds fish; a northern country breeds a race of stout men.

Breed, v. i.

verbintransitive

Sense 1. To produce a fetus: to bear and nourish young, as in pregnancy. “That they may breed abundantly in the earth.” Gen. viii. 17.

The mother had never bred before. Carpenter.

Sense 2. To be formed in the parent or dam: to be generated, or to grow, as young before birth; as, children or young breed in the matrix.

Sense 3. To have birth; to be produced; as, fish breed in rivers.

Heavens rain grace On that which breeds between them. Shak.

Sense 4. To raise a breed. “Choose the kind of animal which you wish to breed from.” Gardner.

To breed in and in, to breed from animals of the same stock that are closely related.

Breed, n.

noun

n. 1. A race or progeny from the same parents or stock; as, a new breed of sheep. Carpenter.

Sense 2. A cast; a kind; a race of men or other animals, which have an alliance by nativity, or some distinctive qualities in common. “Greyhounds of the best breed.” Carpenter.

Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England’s breed. Shak.

Sense 3. Progeny; offspring;—applied to other things than animals.

Sense 4. A number produced at once; a hatch; a brood. [Obs.] Grew.