Meaning of breed in the bone | Babel Free

Definitions

To establish or ingrain firmly within someone's nature.

idiomatic, usually

Examples

“"And for thy ill tongue, and worse practices, his lordship knows they are bred in the bone of thee."”

“"My father was a born aristocrat. I think, in some preexistent state, he must have been in the higher circles of spirits, and brought all his old court pride along with him; for it was ingrain, bred in the bone, though he was originally of poor and not in any way of noble family."”

“Davies meticulously establishes the background, the breeding in the bone, of his hero's life.”

“The distinctiveness of Bellocchio's approach lay in his taking mental affliction, in this case epilepsy, and figuring it as symbolic of the self-immolating rage and frustration that the dysfunctional family breeds in the bone.”

“One principle ought to be bred in the bone of any European after the carnage of the 20th century: that no act of state bears such ominous consequences as changing a border by force.”

CEFR level