ill-bred

[ il-bred ]

adjective

1. showing lack of good social breeding; unmannerly; rude.

ill-bred

adjective

1. badly brought up; lacking good manners

Derived Forms

• ˌill-ˈbreeding, noun

Word History and Origins

Origin of ill-bred¹

First recorded in 1615–25

Example Sentences

To the victory party, apparently, go the ill-bred.

From Washington Post

She stooped to pick them up, and as she handed them to me I saw a little smile of scorn upon her lips, and I guessed at once she considered me ill-bred.

From Literature

But when her children would go out of their own court she called out, “I would have you stay away from ill-bred children!”

From Literature

“The People are ungrammatical, untidy, and their sins gaunt and ill-bred,” Whitman acknowledged, but not without the faith that the “miracle” of original identity, the “luminousness of real vision,” is within everyone’s grasp.

From Salon

An ill-bred falcon, who was subject to the vice of screaming, stood hooded and motionless on a perch like a parrot’s, brooding in some ancestral nightmare.

From Literature

Related Words

• filthy
• immoral
• improper
• lewd
• obscene
• off-color
• outrageous
• ridiculous
• salacious
• shocking
• tasteless
• unbecoming
• unseemly
• vile