- past tense form of domesticate.
- past participle of domesticate.
domesticated
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Explanation
Domesticated means trained to live or work for humans, i.e. pets and farm animals. For centuries humans have believe that dogs are domesticated wolves, but DNA testing reveals that they are in fact a different species. Domesticated comes from domus, the Latin word for home, which is easy to remember — instead of a "roof over our heads" think of your "home as a dome." Domus gives us not only domesticated (adapted to the home or the farm), but also domestic (cooking and cleaning are "domestic" chores), a domestic (someone like a maid who works inside a home as a paid employee), and domicile (a building that serves as a home). Thus domesticated means an animal tamed to live in your home — or, as some women like to joke, a man.
Vocabulary lists containing domesticated
Dog Vocabulary: A Canine Lexicon
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Cat Vocabulary: A Feline Lexicon
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"The Great Gatsby," Chapter 1 Vocabulary
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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.
Researchers also found DNA from cultivated plants, domesticated animals and Mediterranean red coral.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 4, 2026
Humans domesticated the birds and used them as messengers and as food for thousands of years.
From BBC ● Jul. 24, 2026
Dusky farmerfish in East Asia grow “crops” of red algae by assiduously “weeding out less palatable foods” and have effectively domesticated a type of shrimp whose waste fertilizes the algae and boosts yields.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
Humans, and the animals we have brought under our fold, such as dogs and horses, are still evolving and still being domesticated.
From Salon ● Apr. 23, 2026
For many years, geneticists have been tracing the origins of domesticated wheat.
From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari
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.
