Other forms: crossbreeds
A crossbreed is an animal whose parents were of two different breeds. A crossbreed puppy, breed a crossbreed, crossbreeds are hardier.
They often are hardier, because inbreeding within a closed pedigree concentrates the faults as well as the looks. It works as a verb too. A hybrid crosses species rather than breeds, which is a different and much larger step.
1nouncrossbreedAn animal whose parents were of two different breeds.
“Our dog is a crossbreed, half Labrador and half poodle.”
crossbreed is an animal.
Middle English
cross
English
cross
English, today
crossbreed
From cross- + breed. cross comes from Middle English cross. From Middle English cross, cros, from Old English cros (“rood, cross”), from Old Norse kross, from Old Irish cros, from Latin crux (crucī). In this sense displaced native Middle English rode, from Old English rōd (“cross”); see rood. a doublet of crouch and crux. Compare Welsh croes, Irish crois. The sense of "two intersecting lines drawn or cut on a surface; two lines intersecting at right angles" without regard to religious signification develops from the late 14th century.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA