well-bred en · ADJ
Meanings
- (of animals) Of good breed.
-
(of people) Well-mannered and refined because of a good upbringing and education (and, originally and literally but usually not in current usage, because well-born in a eugenic sense).
Ideally you should relax—though well-bred English people do no feel entirely at ease in a room full of naked strangers beating one another.
1986, Marc Polonsky, Russell Taylor, USSR, From an Original Idea by Karl Marx, Faber and Faber, →ISBN:Halpin [Frayser]’s death and the post-mortem demoniacalness of the well-bred Southern woman, lops off the grafted branches of the human and cuts it down to that stump of itself which is primordial, persistent, unconscious animalism.
1918, The Stratford Monthly: An International Magazine, Boston, Mass.: Stratford Company, →OCLC, page 44:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| more well-bred | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic | |
| most well-bred | Degree=Sup | lexicographic | |
| wellbred | alternative | lexicographic | |
| best-bred | Degree=Sup | lexicographic | |
| better-bred | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic |
Translations (9)
sa आजानेय (well-mannered and refined) · es bien nacido (well-mannered and refined) · fi hyvätapainen (well-mannered and refined) · fi hyvin kasvatettu (well-mannered and refined) · bg чистокръвен (of good breed) · nl welopgevoed (well-mannered and refined) · sa आजानेय (of good breed) · nl van een goed ras (of good breed) · fi jalorotuinen (of good breed)