inbred
More pronunciations (2)Fewer pronunciations
attributive/ˈɪnˌbɹɛd/predicative/ˈɪnˌbɹɛd/
inbred adjective: bred within; innate. Also the simple past and past participle of inbreed.
Adjective
inbred (comparative more inbred, superlative most inbred)
- Bred within; innate.
- We who from daily experience knew Miss Smedley like a book—were we not only too well aware that she had neither accomplishments nor charms—no characteristic, in fact, but an inbred viciousness of temper and disposition?1899, Kenneth Grahame, The Golden Age/A White-washed Uncle
- His cold experience tempers all his heat, And inbred worth doth boasting valour slight.1666, John Bryden, Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders
- Synonyms:
- inborn
- Having an ancestry characterized by inbreeding.
- Describing a strain produced through successive generations of inbreeding resulting in a population of genetically identical individuals which are homozygous at all genetic loci.
- Insular or self-contained, primarily interacting with and drawing upon one another.
- The Lavender Quill Society, that group of in-bred Manhattan gay writers who believe that gay literature begins and ends in their clique (outsiders need not apply for membership).1987 April 4, T.R. Witomski, “witomski responds to readers' response to witomski (letter)”, in Gay Community News, page 6
- The level of academic inbreeding differs between countries and continents. Macháček et al. (2022) reported that in North America only 31% of all researchers are inbred (based on 22 major fields of science), while in Asia, this proportion is 55%, in Western and Northern Europe 37% and in Central and...2024 July 16, Jana Růžičková, Zoltán Elek, “Academic inbreeding reduces the scientific performance of ecologists”, in Biologia, volume 79, →DOI, pages 2505–2513
Noun
inbred (plural inbreds)
- A plant or animal produced by inbreeding.
- A person born of incest.
- Since you all marry your cousins I bet you're a bunch of inbreds.
Also used as
inbred is also the simple past and past participle of inbreed.
Synonyms of inbred
Forms of inbred
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more inbred |
| superlative | most inbred |
| Noun | |
| plural | inbreds |
Origin of inbred
From the past participle of inbreed, equivalent to in- + bred.
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Words formed from inbred
Words that rhyme with inbred
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- dread
- wed
- ahead
- bread
- sled
- embed
- in one's stead
- ped
- zed
- bestead
- cred
- ed
- fed
- med
- undead
- abed
- bedspread
- DMZ
- Fred
- led
- Prussian red
- retread
- spoon-fed
- unwed
- z
- antired
- aspread
- bark bed
- behead
- bested
- bled
- block head
- bred
- cabin bed
- common thread
- Cow Head
- Crow Head
- faned
- fled
- freedom bread
- fugged
- instead
- ked
- knead
- misled
- ned
- pled
- read
Questions about inbred
- What does inbred mean?
- Inbred means bred within; innate.
- What part of speech is inbred?
- Inbred can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce inbred?
- Inbred is pronounced /ˈɪnˌbɹɛd/ (attributive).
Words near inbred in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: inbred (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Persent101-inbred.wav.
Cite this entry: “inbred.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/inbred. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.