Definition of "breed" []

• To produce (offspring); give birth to or hatch. (verb-transitive)
• To bring about; engender: "Admission of guilt tends to breed public sympathy” ( Jonathan Alter). (verb-transitive)
• To cause to reproduce, especially by controlled mating and selection: breed cattle. (verb-transitive)
• To develop new or improved strains in (organisms), chiefly through controlled mating and selection of offspring for desirable traits. (verb-transitive)
• To inseminate or impregnate; mate with. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The profitable style of breeding for the great majority of farmers to adopt, is neither to cross nor to breed from close affinities -- except in rare instances, and for some specific and clearly understood purpose -- but to _breed in the line_; that is, to select the breed or race best adapted to fulfil the requirement demanded, whether it be for the dairy, for labor, or for such combination of these as can be had without too great a sacrifice of the principal requisite, and then to procure a _pure-bred_ male of the kind determined upon, and breed him to the females of the herd; and if these be not such as are calculated to develop his qualities, endeavor by purchase or exchange to procure such as will."
• "Gorant pumps up the stakes by stressing the case's importance as a potential attitude-changer; it could "disprove the public's basic beliefs about the breed," "help change people's minds about pit bulls," "tell the other side of the pit bull story," "show the world what this breed is all about," etc."
• "With this, the price of this breed is also increasing."