breeder

Etymology

It is formed from English breed + -er,^[2][3][4][5] an agent noun from the verb.^[3] breed is from Old English brēdan (“to bring young to birth, procreate; to cherish, keep warm”),^[3] from Proto-Germanic *brōdijaną,^[1] probably from the Germanic base of brood;^[2] Etymonline traces it further to Proto-Indo-European *bhreu- (“to boil, bubble, burn”), the underlying notion being incubation, warming to hatch.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who breeds animals: 1529, in a statute of Henry VIII.^[2] Etymonline dates the sense, especially of a raiser of cattle, to the 1530s,^[3] Merriam-Webster gives 1531,^[6] and Dictionary.com 1525–35.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In the mid 16th century the word also meant a keeper of animals for a product such as wool or meat (1547), a breeding animal (1538), and the source or cause of something (1547).^[2] From the 1570s it was used of a person, especially a woman, who bears offspring,^[3][2] as in Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus (1594).^[2] Johnson (1755) listed that which produces anything, the person who brings up another, and a prolific female.^[7] The sense of one who brings up or educates, cited from Ascham, did not outlive the 16th century.^[2][7] Gardeners called a tulip of solid colour a breeder from 1660.^[2] In nuclear physics a reactor that produces more fissile material than it uses has been a breeder since the 1940s: 1945 in the OED, 1948 in Etymonline.^[2][3] As a derogatory term for a heterosexual person, first in American gay and lesbian slang, the OED dates it from 1975^[2] and Etymonline from 1986.^[3] In American underworld slang of the 1930s a breeder was a master criminal.^[8] In Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and East Anglia a breeder was a boil or whitlow, and also an unseasonably fine day, a weather-breeder.^[9]

Timeline

• 1529 – a person who breeds animals.^[2]
• 1538 – an animal that breeds or is kept for breeding.^[2]
• 1547 – the source or cause of something.^[2]
• 1594 – a person, especially a woman, who bears children.^[2]
• 1660 – a breeder tulip.^[2]
• 1945 – a breeder reactor.^[2]
• 1975 – (derogatory slang) a heterosexual person.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who breeds animals or plants: a dog breeder.^[10][6][2]
2. An animal or plant kept for breeding.^[10][6][2]
3. Something that reproduces, especially in large numbers: Mice are prolific breeders.^[10][6]
4. A source or cause: Idleness is a breeder of mischief.^[10][2]
5. A breeder reactor, a nuclear reactor that produces more fissile material than it consumes.^[10][2]
6. (slang, derogatory) A heterosexual person.^[10][2]
7. (obsolete, 1568–96) A person who brings up or educates another.^[2][7]

Word family

• mouthbreeder
• nonbreeder
• stockbreeder
• fast-breeder reactor

Related words

• breed
• breeder reactor
• breeding
• brood
• brooding
• purebred

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
9. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
10. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins