breed

1. 1.

   a special variety of domesticated animals within a species

   “he experimented on a particular breed of white rats”

   “he created a new strain of sheep”

   Synonymsstrainstock

   Broadervarietyanimal group

   Narrowerbloodstockpedigree

   Part ofspecies
2. 2.

   a special type

   “Google represents a new breed of entrepreneurs”

   Broadertype

Other forms of breed

plural

breeds·

past tense or participle

bred

present participle

breeding·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about breed

What does breed mean?

breed means "call forth". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in breed?

breed has 1 syllable: breed. In IPA it is /ˈbɹid/.

What is another word for breed?

Close synonyms include engender, spawn, cover, multiply, strain. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is breed a common word?

breed is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.