inbred

comparative more inbred · superlative most inbred

1. Bred within; innate.

   His cold experience tempers all his heat, And inbred worth doth boasting valour slight.

   1666, John Bryden, Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders

   1 more example

   We who from daily experience knew Miss Smedley like a book—were we not only too well aware that she had neither accomplishments nor charms—no characteristic, in fact, but an inbred viciousness of temper and disposition?

   1899, Kenneth Grahame, The Golden Age/A White-washed Uncle

   Synonyms: inborn

2. derogatoryoftenHaving an ancestry characterized by inbreeding.
3. biologyDescribing a strain produced through successive generations of inbreeding resulting in a population of genetically identical individuals which are homozygous at all genetic loci.
4. figurativelyInsular or self-contained, primarily interacting with and drawing upon one another.

   The Lavender Quill Society, that group of in-bred Manhattan gay writers who believe that gay literature begins and ends in their clique (outsiders need not apply for membership).

   1987 April 4, T.R. Witomski, “witomski responds to readers' response to witomski (letter)”, in Gay Community News, page 6

   1 more example

   The level of academic inbreeding differs between countries and continents. Macháček et al. (2022) reported that in North America only 31% of all researchers are inbred (based on 22 major fields of science), while in Asia, this proportion is 55%, in Western and Northern Europe 37% and in Central and Eastern Europe reaches nearly 79% which is the highest proportion of inbreeders on the global scale.

   2024 July 16, Jana Růžičková, Zoltán Elek, “Academic inbreeding reduces the scientific performance of ecologists”, in Biologia, volume 79, →DOI, pages 2505–2513

plural inbreds

1. A plant or animal produced by inbreeding.
2. vulgarA person born of incest.

   Since you all marry your cousins I bet you're a bunch of inbreds.

1. participlepastsimple past and past participle of inbreed

   People discovered that the Belgian hare of those days was a very delicate animal and that it was subject to many diseases. It had been inbred so long in order to produce show animals that its vitality was nearly gone.

   1920, Chesla Clella Sherlock, chapter 3, in Care and Management of Rabbits