inbreeding: Meaning and Definition of

in•breed•ing

Pronunciation: (in'brē"ding), [key]
— n. Biol.
  1. the mating of closely related individuals, as cousins, sire-daughter, brother-sister, or self-fertilized plants, which tends to increase the number of individuals that are homozygous for a trait and therefore increases the appearance of recessive traits.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
See also: