The noun bread (rhymes with red) refers to a kind of food made of flour, water, and yeast.

Bred (also rhymes with red) is the simple past and past participle form of the verb breed (rhymes with need), which means to produce offspring, to bring about, or to bring up and train. The noun breed means a particular type of animal or plant, or any type, sort, or kind.

Examples:

• "Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts." (James Beard)

• The Yorkshire terrier was originally bred to hunt for rats and other vermin.
• "To successfully breed bananas, you have to be stubborn; prideful; and, perhaps to the point of danger, obsessed." (Dan Koeppel)

Practice:

(a) I was born and _____ in Appalachia.

(b) "Most brown _____ is merely white _____ with a fake tan." (Joel Fuhrman)

(c) "Scientists are not some special _____ of pure, disinterested thinkers who pay attention to nothing but data and logic." (Peter Godfrey-Smith)

Answers to Practice Exercises

Glossary of Commonly Confused Words