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1. Mating between organisms that are genetically more closely related than organisms selected at random from the population. 2. A practice of mating animals that are closely related. The term is clearly relative to how the population is defined; the higher the i. in the population, the less it will lie in the individual mating.
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in·breed·ing 'in-'brēd-iŋ n the interbreeding of closely related individuals esp. to preserve and fix desirable characters of and to eliminate unfavorable characters from a stock compare LINEBREEDING, OUTBREEDING
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n.
the production of off-spring by parents who are closely related; for example, who are first cousins or siblings. The amount of inbreeding in a population is largely controlled by culture and tradition. Compare outbreeding.
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in·breed·ing (inґbrēd-ing) the breeding of closely related individuals, or of individuals having closely similar genetic constitutions.Medical dictionary. 2011.