reared

Reared is the past tense and past participle of the verb rear, meaning to bring up and care for a person or animal, including education, nourishment, and social development. It also can mean to cause something to rise or stand upright, as when a horse rears up on its hind legs. As an adjective, reared describes someone or something that has been brought up or raised, often with reference to the environment or upbringing, such as a person reared in a strict household or cattle reared for dairy or meat.

In everyday usage, reared is commonly applied to human upbringing and animal husbandry. When used for people, it denotes the process of nurturing through childhood into adulthood. In reference to animals, it covers the systematic care, feeding, and training required to raise them. The phrase “to rear up” is also used for animals that lift themselves onto their hind legs, notably horses. The word can appear in active constructions (they reared the children) or passive constructions (the children were reared by their grandparents).

Etymology and style notes: reared derives from the older verb rear, with roots in Old English and related Germanic languages. In modern American English, raise is more commonly used for the act of bringing up a child, while rear remains common in British English and in more formal or traditional writing. Reared as an adjective is relatively formal and may appear in academic or literary contexts.

See also: raise, rear (disambiguation), upbringing.