domesticate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to tame (an animal), especially by generations of breeding, to live in close association with human beings as a pet or work animal and usually creating a dependency so that the animal loses its ability to live in the wild.
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to adapt (a plant) so as to be cultivated by and beneficial to human beings.
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to accustom to household life or affairs.
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to take (something foreign, unfamiliar, etc.) for one's own use or purposes; adopt.
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to make more ordinary, familiar, acceptable, or the like.
to domesticate radical ideas.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to bring or keep (wild animals or plants) under control or cultivation
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to accustom to home life
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to adapt to an environment
to domesticate foreign trees
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of domesticate
First recorded in 1635–45; from Medieval Latin domesticātus (past participle of domesticāre ), equivalent to domestic- domestic + -ātus -ate 1
Explanation
To domesticate something is to tame a wild animal or plant so it can live with people. Dogs and cats are called domesticated animals because they live with us peacefully. Nobody knows who first domesticated a wolf, but whoever it was was a very important person. If people hadn't started living with wolves, slowly domesticating them and teaching them to get along with people, wolves would never have evolved into today's dogs. We usually talk about how to domesticate animals, but wild plants can be domesticated too.
Vocabulary lists containing domesticate
The Middle East and Central Asia - Introductory
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The Middle East and Central Asia - Middle School
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The Middle East and Central Asia - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"We can use these modern tools to domesticate undomesticated crops."
From Science Daily • Jan. 11, 2026
T1 and Canadian Solar have made particularly big strides in the last couple of months to fully domesticate their supply chains so they can take advantage of the government subsidies.
From Barron's • Dec. 9, 2025
And yet none of them voted against it; some tried to domesticate it or expressed hope that South Carolina would be ready for a bill this extreme in the future.
From Slate • Nov. 21, 2025
Archaeological evidence indicated that the two regions may have been in contact at least 10,000 years ago when people in Mesopotamia began to farm and domesticate animals, leading to the emergence of an agricultural society.
From BBC • Jul. 2, 2025
Why, then, didn’t Native Americans domesticate those apparently useful apples and grapes themselves?
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
