domesticate
[duh-mes-ti-keyt]
- to convert (animals, plants, etc.) to domestic uses; tame.
- 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.
- to adapt (a plant) so as to be cultivated by and beneficial to human beings.
- to accustom to household life or affairs.
- to take (something foreign, unfamiliar, etc.) for one's own use or purposes; adopt.
- to make more ordinary, familiar, acceptable, or the like: to domesticate radical ideas.
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- to be domestic.
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Origin of domesticate
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
discipline, instruction, workout, practice, schooling, drill, teaching, education, guidance, exercise, coaching, control, development, restraint, self-restraint, will, regulation, preparation, self-control, methodExamples from the Web for domestication
Contemporary Examples
What I see happening, with writers like Charlaine Harris and Stephenie Meyer, is the domestication of the vampire.
Anne Rice on Sparkly Vampires, ‘Twilight,’ ‘True Blood,’ and WerewolvesMarlow Stern
November 23, 2011
Historical Examples
Its chief defect for domestication is the small size of the fruit.
Manual of American Grape-GrowingU. P. Hedrick
This, in fact, is the great bar to the domestication of animals.
On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural SelectionCharles Darwin
The adaptation of the unicorns proceeded in the following years, but not their domestication.
Space PrisonTom Godwin
It may be said that domestication might produce them in the latter.
Anecdotes of DogsEdward Jesse
This was one of the results of his domestication in Washington Square.
Washington SquareHenry James
domesticate
sometimes US domesticize (dəˈmɛstɪˌsaɪz)
- to bring or keep (wild animals or plants) under control or cultivation
- to accustom to home life
- to adapt to an environmentto domesticate foreign trees
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for domestication
domesticate
v.
1630s, of animals; 1741, of persons, "to cause to be attached to home and family;" from Medieval Latin domesticatus, past participle of domesticare "to tame," literally "to dwell in a house," from domesticus (see domestic). Related: Domesticated; domesticating.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper