domesticate

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin domesticātus, the past participle of domesticō (“to tame”),^[2][3][4][5] from Latin domesticus (“belonging to the household”),^[2][5][6] from domus (“house”),^[2] from Proto-Indo-European *dem- (“house, household”).^[2] The OED records the Latin verb for "to tame" from the 8th century, and for "to adopt into one's household" and "to live in a house" only from the 15th.^[5] It compares Middle French domestiquer, from the 15th century, and Spanish domesticar, from 1386.^[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged instead analyses the verb as from English domestic + -ate.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

To adapt a plant for cultivation: 1622, in Bonoeil's treatise on silk-making.^[5] This is the OED's revised date.^[5] Etymonline dates the verb to the 1630s, implied in domesticated and used of animals,^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged to about 1639,^[7] and Dictionary.com to 1635–45.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The English verb began with bringing living things under human control, first plants (1622) and then animals (1660), the sense that Latin domesticāre already had.^[5] Almost at once it spread to people and ideas: to civilizing a person or a place (1641), and to making something foreign feel native (before 1639, in Wotton), the sense in which a custom or a philosophy is domesticated.^[5][7] A third line goes back to the literal house: to make a person settle in a household (1688), then to make a person fond of home life (1741, in Richardson).^[5][2] Johnson (1755) knew only this last line, defining it "to make domestick; to withdraw from the publick" and citing Clarissa.^[8] The intransitive use, to set up home with someone, dates from 1768.^[5] Later extensions keep the idea of bringing something inside one's own borders: an industry brought into one's own country (1871) and, in law, a corporation (1906) or a legal instrument (1932) given standing in another jurisdiction.^[5] In 1995 Venuti used it of a translation stripped of its foreign character.^[5] The noun followed from the verb: a domesticated plant or animal, from 1911 in the OED and 1951 in Merriam-Webster Unabridged.^[5][7]

Timeline

• 1622 – to adapt a plant for cultivation.^[5]
• before 1639 – to make something foreign familiar or native.^[5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates this sense to about 1639.^[7]
• 1641 – to civilize a person, group or place.^[5]
• 1660 – to adapt an animal to live with and serve humans.^[5] Etymonline dates the animal sense to the 1630s.^[2]
• 1688 – to make a person settle in a place or join a household.^[5]
• 1741 – to make a person attached to home life.^[5][2]
• 1768 – intransitive, to set up home with someone.^[5]
• 1793 – figurative, to make something less harsh or wild.^[5]
• 1871 – to bring an industry into one's own country.^[5]
• 1911 – noun, a domesticated plant or animal.^[5]
• 1932 – in United States law, to make a legal instrument valid in another jurisdiction.^[5]
• 1995 – to translate so that a text's foreign character disappears.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To adapt an animal or plant, usually by selective breeding, to live with people and be of use to them: Early farmers domesticated wild goats.^[5][9][10]
2. To make a person fond of, or suited to, home life and household duties.^[10][5][7]
3. To bring something foreign into local use and make it feel native: a northern recipe gradually domesticated in the south.^[7][5]
4. To introduce a plant or animal into a new region and accustom it there; to naturalize.^[9][10]
5. To civilize a person, group or place.^[5]
6. To make something less harsh, wild or challenging.^[5]
7. To live in and keep up a home with someone; to settle in a place.^[5]
8. (law) In the United States and some African countries, to make a judgment or other legal instrument valid in another jurisdiction.^[5]
9. To translate a text so that it loses its foreign character.^[5]

Noun

1. A domesticated plant or animal.^[7][5][9]

Word family

• domestication
• domesticative
• domesticator
• overdomesticate

Related words

• domestic
• dome

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
4. ^ a b Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
9. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins