Breeding, n.
1. The act or process of generating or bearing.
2. The raising or improving of any kind of domestic animals; as, farmers should pay attention to breeding.
3. Nurture; education; formation of manners. She had her breeding at my father's charge. Shak.
4. Deportment or behavior in the external offices and decorums of social life; manners; knowledge of, or training in, the ceremonies, or polite observances of society. Delicacy of breeding, or that polite deference and respect which civility obliges us either to express or counterfeit towards the persons with whom we converse. Hume.
2 more senses
5. Descent; pedigree; extraction. [Obs.] Honest gentlemen, I know not your breeding. Shak. Close breeding, In and in breeding, breeding from a male and female from the same parentage. -- Cross breeding, breeding from a male and female of different lineage. -- Good breeding, politeness; genteel deportment.
Syn. -- Education; instruction; nurture; training; manners. See Education.
Shades of meaning
Fernald has no entry of its own for breeding; he lists it under behavior, education.
Where he writes about it:
Breeding, unless with some adverse limitation, denotes that manner and conduct which result from good birth and training. — from behavior
Breeding and nurture include teaching and training, especially as directed by and dependent upon home life and personal association; breeding having reference largely to manners with such qualities as are deemed distinctively characteristic of high birth; nurture (literally nourishing) having more direct reference to moral qualities, not overlooking the physical and mental. — from education