bred

past tense of breed
1
as in propagated
to bring forth offspring rabbits will breed very frequently unless they're kept separated

Synonyms & Similar Words

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2
3
4
as in slept
to engage in sexual intercourse cats breeding outside our window made a horrible racket last night

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of bred Dogs are often bred repeatedly in poor conditions, left sick or injured, and treated as products instead of living beings. Kelli Bender, PEOPLE, 30 Oct. 2025 About The Breed The Siberian Husky is known for its endurance and working‐dog background, originally bred in northeast Asia for sled pulling. Lydia Patrick, MSNBC Newsweek, 30 Oct. 2025 Ridglan Farms, located in Blue Mounds just outside Madison, is home to 3,200 beagles that are bred for medical testing and research, according to its website. Laura Schulte, jsonline.com, 30 Oct. 2025 The Hermann Farm museum also includes a collection of historic buildings along with beautiful Shire horses—large, gentle animals bred, raised, and trained on the farm. Erika Ebsworth-Goold, Travel + Leisure, 25 Oct. 2025 Plutonium is also the principal fuel in a fast neutron reactor, and in any reactor, it is progressively bred from non-fissile U-238 that comprises over 99 percent of natural uranium. Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 23 Oct. 2025 But as this story makes clear, absolute immunity has bred a culture of impunity that leaves them above the very law they’re meant to enforce. Micah Kimball, Denver Post, 16 Oct. 2025 To test whether these sperm changes had lasting consequences, the infected male mice were bred with healthy, uninfected females. New Atlas, 13 Oct. 2025 They weren’t bred for their brains, either. Bruce Headlam, New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bred
Verb
  • Sympodial orchids must be propagated by dividing them, not pruning or trimming them.
    Leanne Potts, Better Homes & Gardens, 23 Oct. 2025
  • The hedges surrounding the UGA football field today might not be the exact same shrubs from 96 years ago, but they’ve been propagated from the originals planted in 1929, preserving the continuity and lineage.
    Cameron Beall, Southern Living, 18 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • During the president’s first term in office, his officials raised alarms about Beijing’s growing technological prowess, its military buildup, and its dominance over the critical minerals industry.
    Mira Rapp-Hooper, Foreign Affairs, 29 Oct. 2025
  • This week, faced with the prospect of losing SNAP assistance and the stress of the holidays around the corner, Gabrielle, a West Virginia resident, reluctantly raised her hand in a community Facebook group.
    Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN Money, 29 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • See our fan gallery created by Courier Journal photographer Scott Utterback.
    Stephanie Stremplewski, Louisville Courier Journal, 26 Oct. 2025
  • Examples include the hospitality boxes F1 has created with Lewis Hamilton and Gordon Ramsay for 2025.
    Patrick Iversen, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • For this story, our editors and contributors tested their luxury pillows in their own homes for at least a month (our minimum testing time frame), but most of them have been slept on for nearly six months to get a true gauge of how these models hold up over time.
    Kate McGregor, Architectural Digest, 31 Oct. 2025
  • Rochelle had spent all night at the hospital with sick kids and slept less than an hour.
    Jayme Fraser, USA Today, 30 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • Between 2019 and 2022, the project planted 8,425 evergreen trees and shrubs in Louisville's south end.
    Maggie Menderski, Louisville Courier Journal, 26 Oct. 2025
  • New live oak trees were planted at Toomer’s Corner in 2015, where the tradition lives on.
    Jordy Fee-Platt, New York Times, 25 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • According to the graphic on the Optoma UHZ58LV's product page (reproduced below), one laser takes care of the red color spectrum while the other beams out blue, green and yellow.
    New Atlas, New Atlas, 30 Oct. 2025
  • Climate Central released a new version of the database yesterday, reproduced in full with new data collected since the project was scuttled.
    Christian Orozco, NBC news, 23 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • Many designers cited how COVID-19 has impacted design trends and fostered a desire to make the home personal, a place of comfort and stability.
    Maya Chawla, Architectural Digest, 3 Nov. 2025
  • Beyond the tunnels, Ames fostered equally bold projects.
    Kaif Shaikh, Interesting Engineering, 30 Oct. 2025
Verb
  • Eileen has freshly embraced sobriety, and has brought her manuscript with her in the hopes of impressing several key mucky-mucks in attendance.
    David Fear, Rolling Stone, 29 Oct. 2025
  • Brown brought a full R&B coalition with him in Summer Walker, Bryson Tiller and Jhené Aiko, proving that Beyoncé isn’t the only R&B powerhouse capable of pulling stadium-level receipts.
    Carl Lamarre, Billboard, 29 Oct. 2025

Cite this Entry

“Bred.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bred. Accessed 4 Nov. 2025.

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