domesticate

CEFRC1

/dəˈmɛ.stɪ.keɪt/

verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    verb

    To train a wild animal to live with people.

  2. 02

    verb

    Extra detail

    To adapt to live with humans.

Examples

  • We didn't domesticate cats; cats domesticated us.

  • The Russians claim to have successfully domesticated foxes.

At a glance

Sits at C1 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
1

Also pronounced

  • /-kɪt/
  • /-stə-/

Deep Dive

verb

Extra meanings

  1. To make (more) fit for domestic life.

  2. To make domestic.

  3. To make a legal instrument recognized and enforceable in a jurisdiction foreign to the one in which the instrument was originally issued or created.

More examples

In context

  • Dogs have clearly domesticated more than cats.

  • "To answer your question, Tai's fine. She mostly just smokes socially these days." "You're domesticating her!" "We're domesticating each other. The other day I found myself reading a home decorating blog."

Antonyms

Quick test

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Farmers try to blank many different wild animals for agricultural use.

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

Nearby

Origin

verb

First attested in 1620; either borrowed from Middle French domestiquer (Modern French domestiquer) or directly from Medieval Latin domesticātus, perfect passive participle of domesticō (“to domesticate”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix). By surface analysis, domestic + -ate.