WordWeight : Weighing the Words

Pronunciation : Breed"ing
Part of Speech : n.
Definition : 1. The act or process of generating or bearing.

2. The raising or improving of any kind of domestic animals; as, farmers should pay attention to breeding.

3. Nurture; education; formation of manners. She had her breeding at my father's charge. Shak.

4. Deportment or behavior in the external offices and decorums of social life; manners; knowledge of, or training in, the ceremonies, or polite observances of society. Delicacy of breeding, or that polite deference and respect which civility obliges us either to express or counterfeit towards the persons with whom we converse. Hume.

5. Descent; pedigree; extraction. [Obs.] Honest gentlemen, I know not your breeding. Shak. Close breeding, In and in breeding, breeding from a male and female from the same parentage. -- Cross breeding, breeding from a male and female of different lineage. -- Good breeding, politeness; genteel deportment.

Syn. -- Education; instruction; nurture; training; manners. See Education.
Source : Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913