Other forms: hybrids
A hybrid is one thing made out of two different things. A car with a petrol engine and a battery, a plant bred from two kinds of rose, a working week split between the office and the kitchen table.
It is a noun and an adjective — you buy a hybrid, or you buy a hybrid car. Biology owns the oldest use: a mule is a hybrid of a horse and a donkey, and hybrid seed is bred to put the strengths of two varieties into one plant. Hybrid working has taken over the office use, meaning part of the week at home and part in the building. In everyday speech the car drowns out everything else, so if you say hybrid with no other clue, people hear engine plus battery. Keep it to two identifiable sources: a hybrid is a cross, not a muddle.
1nouncrossSomething made by combining two different things.
“The new building is a hybrid of church and concert hall.”
2nounplantA plant or animal bred from two different species or varieties.
“A mule is a hybrid, the offspring of a donkey and a horse.”
3nounhybridA car that runs on both a petrol engine and an electric motor.
“They traded the old diesel in for a hybrid.”
4adjectivemixedCombining two different things or two ways of doing something.
“The company moved to a hybrid week: Tuesdays and Thursdays in the office.”
synonyms: mixed
hybrid is a cross between two things.
Latin had hybrida, a spelling of hibrida, and it named one very particular animal: the offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar. English borrowed it around 1601 and then barely touched it until the 1850s, when breeders found a use for it. From a farmyard piglet to the quiet car on your street.
Latin
hybrida
English, today
hybrid
Built from
From Latin hybrida, a variant of hibrida (“a mongrel; specifically, an offspring of a tame sow and a wild boar”). Attested since 1601, but rare before 1850.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA