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Glite Dictionary
🐶 To breed relatives 🔄 To keep insular
to inbreed

to inbreed

1 7.7
To mate closely related animals or plants, reducing their variety and causing health problems
  • verb
  • /ˈɪnˌbriːd/
  • Specialized
translation icon : cruzar entre parientes
  • When you inbreed a population, you can develop very fine traits like the dogs and cats that people breed.
  • inbreeding depression
  • molecular basis of inbreeding
  • basis of inbreeding

And the scientific side of it is that they inbred so much that their feet have two toes like lobster claws.

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Examples

  • Anyway, you can inbreed laboratory mice and you can keep them under absolutely identical conditions.

    The Royal Institution

  • The purebred dogs sometimes end up inbreeding, which causes genetic defects.

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  • When you inbreed a population of plants, it can lead to reduced genetic diversity.

  • Farmers sometimes inbreed livestock to preserve specific traits, but this can cause health problems.

  • If you inbreed the same type of dog over several generations, you may notice an increase in genetic disorders.

Antonyms

to outbreed
  • Specialized
1 7.2

To breed animals or plants with unrelated ones to increase variation in their genes

How Related

to inbreed
  • Specialized
1 7.7
to outcross
  • Specialized
8.0

Surface Forms

inbreed infinitive
inbreeding present participle
inbreeds third person singular
inbred past
inbred past participle

Morphology

inbreed = breed (semi-transparent) = in + breed

The relation to 'breed' is clear, but learners may not fully infer that 'in-' means breeding within the same family or closed group rather than simply breeding 'inside'.

Etymology

Inbreed comes from the parts in- meaning 'in' or 'within' and breed meaning 'to produce'. So it literally means 'to produce within' and helps you remember that inbreeding is when closely related animals or plants mate, which can lower genetic variety and cause health problems.