domicile
Americanverb (used with object)
noun
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a dwelling place
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a permanent legal residence
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commerce the place where a bill of exchange is to be paid
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of domicile
First recorded in 1470–80; from Middle French, from Latin domicilium, equivalent to domicol(a) ( domi-, combining form of domus “house” + -cola “dweller”; see colonus) + -ium -ium
Explanation
Domicile is a fancy word for the place where you live. Whether it's a mansion on 5th Avenue or a one-room shack in the desert, if you live in it, it's your domicile. If you live somewhere — such as in a house, on a houseboat, or in an apartment — then you have a domicile, or simply, housing. In the eyes of the law, your domicile is your legal place of residence. You can turn domicile into a verb, and say that you are currently domiciled in the Caribbean — but you'd probably only use that terminology if you were on trial for something like tax evasion.
Vocabulary lists containing domicile
There's No Word Like Home
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Unit 4: Powerful Openings
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Oliver Twist
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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.
See Examples For:
“Establish Florida domicile first, cleanly and provably. Then time the big withdrawals for after that’s done. The home sale and the distribution strategy aren’t two decisions — they’re one decision with two moving parts.”
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 8, 2026
As a result, someone’s true home, or domicile, is especially important.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 8, 2026
The majority opinion roundly rejected Alito and Thomas’ arguments about domicile.
From Salon ● Jul. 2, 2026
“Of course, domicile was relevant to naturalization and expatriation. But that by no means suggests it was a prerequisite to national citizenship at birth,” Roberts wrote.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
From the humble beginnings of the storefront on Hart Street, to the respectable but by no means splashy domicile off Beniteau, Assumption was finally going to get a grand church building.
From "Middlesex: A Novel" by Jeffrey Eugenides
His co-author and Wharton economics colleague Kent Smetters says tools such as Zoom make it easier than before to move domiciles and avoid a state or local wealth tax.
From Barron's ● Jan. 3, 2026
The impressive exhibit features shells the size of small dogs, adult hand-sized sand dollars, giant horseshoe crab domiciles, column-like shells, leather corals, square sea stars and other curiosities among thousands.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 25, 2023
Spottiswoode has a good reason for poking around avian domiciles.
From Salon ● Apr. 17, 2022
Interior designer Mary Welch Fox Stasik turns clients’ domiciles from drab to fab in the new home-renovation series “Breaking Bland.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 1, 2021
Fact: Many of the domiciles in Century Village do not have family rooms with desks.
From "The View From Saturday" by E.L. Konigsburg
“Where you’re domiciled on Dec. 31 can determine which state taxes your entire retirement income for that year,” said Jeff Judge, a certified financial planner and managing partner at Chesapeake Financial Planners.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 8, 2026
Black people who were enslaved were undoubtedly domiciled here, but the same is not true of temporary visitors.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 12, 2026
“If Congress intended to limit American citizenship to the children of those domiciled in the United States, nothing in the succinct language of the Citizenship Clause conveyed that design,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
From Salon ● Jul. 2, 2026
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission suit suggests that the agency thinks it can go after bad actors on Polymarket, even though the platform isn’t registered with the agency and is legally domiciled in Panama.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 24, 2026
The operation of the principle adopted in the last census is exactly opposite to this; it tends to overrate foreign subjects domiciled in England and to underrate English subjects who were born beyond seas.
From Social Transformations of the Victorian Age A Survey of Court and Country by Escott, T. H. S. (Thomas Hay Sweet)
The benefits of domiciling in the U.S. rarely outweighed the risks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 8, 2026
Many asset managers enjoy lower tax rates by domiciling funds in countries such as Ireland and Luxembourg.
From Reuters ● Jun. 2, 2021
That would be like domiciling at an EconoLodge.
From Slate ● Jun. 24, 2013
But his surveys of Manhattan subways, sewage, traffic and domiciling reveal conditions so overwhelmingly horrible that even Dreamer Strauss loses heart.
From Time Magazine Archive
Even those whose passion for the races is well developed will easily find a method of being present at the Grand Prix without domiciling themselves among us.
From Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 by Walton, William
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.
