Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adverb Repeatedly within the same or closely related stocks.
from The Century Dictionary.
- From animals of the same parentage; from animals closely related by blood: as, to breed in-and-in.
- With constant interaction of any kind.
- noun An old gambling game played by two or three persons with four dice, each person having a box.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- Applied to breeding from a male and female of the same parentage. See under
breeding . - noun An old game played with four dice.
In signified a doublet, or two dice alike;in-and-in , either two doubles, or the four dice alike.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun An old game played with four
dice , a double being referred to as "in" and two doubles as "in-and-in".
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word in-and-in.
Examples
-
And this breeding in-and-in has handed down his influence to the present time in an extraordinary degree.
-
And yet this is not so; -- he is himself an illustration of the breeding in-and-in system -- his sire and dam having been half brother and sister, both got by 'Foljambe.'
-
The fact undeniably is, that these variations are almost wholly abnormal -- mere exaggerated characteristics, induced in the first instance, perhaps, by high cultivation and close in-and-in breeding.
Life: Its True Genesis R. W. Wright
-
In the latter case breeding in-and-in is _usually_ found to result in decided and rapid deterioration.
-
The term _in-and-in_ is often very loosely used and is variously understood; some, and among these several of the best writers, confine the phrase to the coupling of those of exactly the same blood, i.e. brothers and sisters; while others include in it breeding from parents and offspring, and others still employ the term to embrace those of more distant relationship.
-
Their rapid increase is attributable not to any incestuous breeding in-and-in among themselves, but to a violent seduction of the President and the Heads of Department by importunate Congressmen; and you may rest assured that this criminal multiplication fills nobody with half so much righteous indignation and virtuous sorrow as the clerks themselves.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 39, January, 1861 Various
-
Breeding in-and-in has some advantages and many advocates.
Cattle and Cattle-breeders William M'Combie
-
The 'natives' are a heterogenous mixture of various breeds, introduced from time to time for different purposes, and allowed to cross and recross, breed in-and-in, and mingle as chance or convenience dictated.
The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy Various
-
Then they live in close communities, and marry "in-and-in," so that the effect of unhealthy living becomes strengthened into hereditary disease; and habitual intemperance does its work upon their constitutions, though the quantities of raw spirits they consume appear to produce scarcely any immediate effect.
Anahuac : or, Mexico and the Mexicans, Ancient and Modern Edward Burnett Tylor
-
But when crossing is practiced injudiciously and indiscriminately, and especially when so done for the purpose of procuring _breeding animals_, it cannot be too severely censured, and is scarcely less objectionable than careless in-and-in breeding.
qroqqa commented on the word in-and-in
Rickety dwellings of undoubted fashion, but of a capacity to hold nothing comfortably except a dismal smell, looked like the last result of the great mansions' breeding in-and-in; and, where their little supplementary bows and balconies were supported on thin iron columns, seemed to be scrofulously resting upon crutches.
—Dickens, Little Dorrit, ch. 27
August 27, 2010