🏇 A racehorse 🎩 A noble person 🐎 A purebred animal 🐶 Purebred (adjective)

thoroughbred

4 7.9

A person born into a rich family who has good manners

noun
/ˈθɜroʊˌbrɛd/

Archaic

: persona de abolengo

But, you know, you are a thoroughbred.

Examples

And I think Smail would appreciate me saying this young man is a thoroughbred in the game.
The boy's thoroughbred if ever there was one.

Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936)
His mama was a thoroughbred.

Tex (1982)
The old man whipped her up - blue blood, a thoroughbred.

Vivacious Lady (1938)
Bona fide thoroughbred she was.

Dream Horse (2021)
Gellhorn's a real thoroughbred, but she's skittish in the stretch.

Hemingway & Gellhorn (2012)
Baby, l'm a thoroughbred.

The Campaign (2012)
He's a thoroughbred.

Son of the Gods (1930)
At twelve, she was a thoroughbred of physicality, lily amid the weeds, jewel among rough stones.

Fiction book (1998)
He comes from a family of thoroughbreds, known for their noble lineage and refined manners.

Antonyms

commoner

31 4.2

A person without a noble title who is an ordinary member of society

Compounds

thoroughbred racing

2 6.0

A sport where people race thoroughbred horses on a track

thoroughbred race

6.1

A horse race only for a special breed of horses bred for running

How Noble

aristocrat

38 6.5

thoroughbred

Archaic

4 7.9

wellborn

Archaic

9.1

gentry

14 8.4

commoner

31 4.2

Surface Forms

thoroughbred singular

thoroughbreds plural

Morphology

thoroughbred = thorough + bred (semi-transparent) = thorough + bred

The compound 'thorough' + 'bred' yields a figurative sense for a person (noble or refined) that is related to 'well-bred' but is somewhat idiomatic.

Etymology

Thoroughbred comes from thorough 'completely' and bred, from the word breed meaning 'to raise'. It originally meant someone fully raised from good stock, so it now describes a person of noble birth or refined manners.