The last word of the first line of
T.S. Eliot's
The Waste Land. Chosen because of its
pejorative connotations, it is a description of
reproduction that strips the act of all its
joyous attributes and instead reduces it to a dull,
mechanical process.
The fact that this word, as is the case with many others that complete lines in the poem's introduction, is a
gerund reinforces this meaning; the ironic use of -ing endings in the first few lines, which are used to much more positive, jubulent ends in
Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales, here have an antithetical effect: they drag the
momentum of the poem.
Compare the
deflated tones that Eliot uses, 'breeding', 'mixing', and 'stirring', to Chaucer's
'pierced', 'bathed', and 'engendered'. The contrast is most explicitly noted if one recongnizes that all six words can be used to describe the sex act.
If you wanted to, you could perhaps summarize much of Eliot's poem, or at least its tone, with the word 'breeding' alone.