Rear or educate?

Choose the closest meaning to “Brought up” in the sentence:
The boy was BROUGHT UP by his grandparents in the countryside.
A. grown
B. reared
C. educated
D. bred
I am really confused whether to choose B. reared or C. educated . I looked up the phrase “bring up” in the dictionary and it said “bring up” is closest meaning to “rear”. However, the key said the correct answer was C. educated. Can you explain to me what is the correct answer?

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It all depends on the context. Apparently the grandparnts reared their grandson and perhaps they also educated him. It’s hard to tell just from one single sentence. Where did you find this exercise?

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Brought up means reared. Bringing up children may include some education, but education is only a part of it. Rearing children includes everything.

This use of rear is almost archaic. People very rarely say that any more.

There are two common ways of saying this, depending on the point of view. From the parents POV, they ‘raise children’. From the child’s POV, they were ‘brought up’ by their parents. ‘Raised’ and ‘brought up’ can be used interchangeably from either point of view, but the two points of view mentioned are the most common.

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Though ‘reared’ is the most suitable choice here, the word is rarely used these days.

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I thought about this a little more. I almost never hear the word rear used for humans, but I do hear it used in a more scientific sense for other animals. Bring up has a human quality about it.

When I was a kid back in the 50s and 60s I still heard the word rear used sometimes. I think it’s been several decades since I heard that word used for humans. As a kid the word rear seemed very old school and oppressive. I associated it with “Spare the rod and spoil the child” type of thinking.

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