hybrid
1. An individual plant or animal resulting from a cross between parents of differing genotypes. Strictly, most individuals in an outbreeding population are hybrids, but the term is more usually reserved for cases in which the parents are individuals whose genomes are sufficiently distinct for them to be recognized as different species or subspecies. Good examples include the mule, produced by cross-breeding an ass and a horse (each of which can breed true as a species) and Spartina townsendii, produced by cross-breeding Spartina maritima (British cord grass) and the North American species Spartina alterniflora (each of which can breed true as a species). Hybrids may be fertile or sterile, depending on qualitative and/or quantitative differences in the genomes of the two parents. Hybrids like Spartina townsendii, whose parents are of different species, are sterile but generally reproduce vegetatively.

2. By analogy with (1), any heterozygote. Each heterozygote represents dissimilar alleles at a given locus, and this difference results from a cross between parental gametes possessing differing alleles at that locus.

3. (graft hybrid) See graft.

hybrid
1. An individual plant or animal resulting from a cross between parents of differing genotypes. Strictly, most individuals in an outbreeding population are hybrids, but the term is more usually reserved for cases in which the parents are individuals whose genomes are sufficiently distinct for them to be recognized as different species or subspecies. A good example is Spartina town-sendii, produced by cross-breeding Spartina maritima (British cord grass) and the North American species Spartina alterniflora (each of which can breed true as a species). Hybrids may be fertile or sterile depending on qualitative and/or quantitative differences in the genomes of the two parents. Hybrids like Spartina townsendii, whose parents are of different species, are sterile, but generally reproduce vegetatively.

2. By analogy with (1), any heterozygote. Each heterozygote represents dissimilar alleles at a given locus, and this difference results from a cross between parental gametes possessing differing alleles at that locus.

3. (graft hybrid) see GRAFT.

hy·brid / ˈhīˌbrid/ • n. a thing made by combining two different elements; a mixture: the final text is a hybrid of the stage play and the film. ∎  Biol. the offspring of two plants or animals of different species or varieties, such as a mule (a hybrid of a donkey and a horse): a hybrid of wheat and rye. ∎ offens. a person of mixed racial or cultural origin. ∎  a word formed from elements taken from different languages, for example television (tele- from Greek, vision from Latin). ∎  a hybrid car. • adj. of mixed character; composed of mixed parts: Mexico's hybrid postconquest culture. ∎  bred as a hybrid from different species or varieties: a hybrid variety hybrid offspring. DERIVATIVES: hy·brid·ism / ˈhībrəˌdizəm/ n. hy·brid·i·ty / hīˈbriditē/ n.

hybrid
1. An individual animal that results from a cross between parents of differing genotypes. Strictly, most individuals in an outbreeding population are hybrids, but the term is more usually reserved for cases in which the parents are individuals whose genomes are sufficiently distinct for them to be recognized as different species or subspecies. A good example is the mule, produced by cross-breeding an ass and a horse (each of which can breed true as a species). Hybrids may be fertile or sterile depending on qualitative and/or quantitative differences in the genomes of the two parents. Hybrids like the mule, whose parents are of different species, are frequently sterile.

2. By analogy, any heterozygote. Each heterozygote represents dissimilar alleles at a given locus, and this difference results from a cross between parental gametes possessing differing alleles at that locus.

3. (graft hybrid) See GRAFT.

hybrid (hī´brĬd), term applied by plant and animal breeders to the offspring of a cross between two different subspecies or species, and by geneticists to the offspring of parents differing in any genetic characteristic (see genetics). The mule, the hybrid steer, and hybrid corn are examples of hybrids produced by breeders, but some animal species may cross-breed in the wild, as the gray wolf and coyote sometimes do. Hybridization between cultivars or varieties is often used in agriculture to obtain greater vigor or growth (heterosis). Hybrid vigor is achieved by crossing two inbred strains (see breeding). The first generation shows greatly increased vigor and a better yield primarily because many genes for recessive, often deleterious, traits from one parent are masked by corresponding dominant genes in the other parent.

HYBRID, also hybrid word. A WORD whose elements come from more than one language: television (from Greek tele-, Latin vision), jollification (from English jolly, Latin -ification). Attitudes to hybrids have been influenced by views on propriety and aesthetics. Traditionally, they have been considered barbarisms; purists have assumed that just as Latin, Greek, French, and English are distinct languages, so elements from these languages within English should be distinct. Hybridization has grown steadily in the 20c, with such words as genocide, hydrofoil, hypermarket, megastar, microwave, photo-journalism, Rototiller, Strip-a-gram, volcanology. See AFRICAN ENGLISH, ANGLO-HYBRID, BARBARISM, COMBINING FORM, INDIAN ENGLISH, THEMATIC VOWEL.

hybrid The offspring of a mating in which the parents differ in at least one characteristic. The term is usually used of offspring of widely different parents, e.g. different varieties or species. Hybrids between different animal species are usually sterile, as is the mule (a cross between a horse and a donkey). See also hybrid vigour.

hybrid Offspring of two parents of different gene composition. It often refers to the offspring of different varieties of a species or of the cross between two separate species. Most inter-species hybrids, such as a mule (offspring of a female horse and a male ass), are unable to produce fertile offspring.

hybrid sb. and adj. half-breed, mongrel; also fig. XVII (rare before XIX). — L. hybrida, (h)ibrida offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar, one born of a Roman father and a foreign mother or of a freeman and a slave.

hybrid (hy-brid) n. the offspring of a cross between two genetically unlike individuals. A hybrid, whose parents are usually of different species or varieties, is often sterile.

hybrid •arid, married •Alfred • Manfred • acrid • Astrid •serried, unburied, viverrid •varied • sacred • hatred • mirid •Mildred • kindred • Wilfred • Ingrid •Winifred • hybrid •florid, forehead, horrid, torrid •storied • Mordred • putrid •hurried, unworried •unwearied • lurid • ascarid •unsalaried • liveried •Abbasid, acid, antacid, flaccid, Hasid, placid •alcid •rancid, unfancied •deuced, lucid, pellucid, Seleucid •cussed • cursed