crossbreed

Other forms: crossbred; crossbreeding; crossbreeds

A crossbreed is an animal or plant that’s a mixture of two different breeds or types. To crossbreed is to produce a creature of this type. If you crossbreed a lion and a tiger, you make a liger.

Geneticists, who study DNA, make crossbreeds when they mix parents with different genes to create a new type of offspring. Often such crossbreeds are new kinds of plants. Different animals can be mixed to create crossbreeds, too. A common example of a crossbreed is with dog breeds, like when a poodle and a schnauzer are bred to create a schnoodle.

Definitions of crossbreed

1. noun

   (genetics) an organism that is the offspring of genetically dissimilar parents or stock; especially offspring produced by breeding plants or animals of different varieties or breeds or species
   synonyms: cross, hybrid

   types:

   dihybrid

   a hybrid produced by parents that differ only at two gene loci that have two alleles each

   monohybrid

   a hybrid produced by crossing parents that are homozygous except for a single gene locus that has two alleles (as in Mendel's experiments with garden peas)

   type of:

   being, organism

   a living thing that has (or can develop) the ability to act or function independently
2. verb

   breed animals or plants using parents of different races and varieties
   “Mendel tried crossbreeding”

   synonyms: cross, hybridise, hybridize, interbreed

   types:

   backcross

   mate a hybrid of the first generation with one of its parents

   type of:

   breed

   cause to procreate (animals)