Word.ws English Dictionary

misbreed

/mɪsˈbɹiːd/

misbreed verb: to breed with the wrong mate, resulting in inferior offspring.

Verb

misbreed (third-person singular simple present misbreeds, present participle misbreeding, simple past and past participle misbred)

  1. To breed with the wrong mate, resulting in inferior offspring.
    • Discord will occur even in Socrates ' city because the rulers, no matter how wise, will misbreed the guardians, producing inferior guardians, who bring discord with them.1994, Brian G. Domino, Social and Political Philosophy, page 29
    • Humans breed in ways quite similar to those of animals; and if humans misbreed, the results are misbreeds.2005, Mark Bennett Feldman, Narrating, Displaying and Spectating the Animal, page 287

Noun

IPA/ˈmɪsbɹiːd/

misbreed (plural misbreeds)

  1. The inferior offspring that results from misbreeding.
    • Humans breed in ways quite similar to those of animals; and if humans misbreed, the results are misbreeds.2005, Mark Bennett Feldman, Narrating, Displaying and Spectating the Animal, page 287
    • Some breeders will go as far as to say that if a Jack Russell is not used for field work than it's not a Jack Russell, but a misbreed that looks like a Jack Russell.2008, Don Rainwater, Kellie Rainwater, The Jack Russell Terrier Canine Companion Or Demon Dog, page 43

Forms of misbreed

Verb
third-person singular presentmisbreeds
present participlemisbreeding
past participlemisbred
pastmisbred
Noun
pluralmisbreeds

Origin of misbreed

From mis- + breed.

Questions about misbreed

What does misbreed mean?
Misbreed means to breed with the wrong mate, resulting in inferior offspring.
What part of speech is misbreed?
Misbreed can be a verb or a noun.
How do you pronounce misbreed?
Misbreed is pronounced /mɪsˈbɹiːd/.
What is the past tense of misbreed?
The past tense of misbreed is misbred.

Words near misbreed in the dictionary

  1. misbranding
  2. misbrands
  3. misbreathe
  4. misbreathing
  5. misbred
  6. misbreed
  7. misbreeding
  8. misbreeds
  9. misbrew
  10. misbrewed
  11. misbrewing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: misbreed (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.

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Cite this entry: “misbreed.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/misbreed. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.