Meaning & use
domesticate
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Meanings
verbtransitive
To breed or train a wild animal or plant over time so that it lives with people and is useful to them.
Grammar: Takes an object: early farmers domesticated wheat.
Patterns
- domesticate something
- domesticate something for something
People first domesticated dogs thousands of years ago.
Farmers in the region domesticated several wild grasses into the grains we eat today.
It is hard to domesticate an animal that panics around humans.
verbtransitivefigurativehumorous
To make something wild, unfamiliar or unruly feel ordinary and manageable, or to make a person comfortable with home life.
Grammar: Takes an object and is often figurative: domesticate a wild idea.
Patterns
- domesticate someone
- domesticate something
Marriage and two children had domesticated him completely.
The company tried to domesticate the new technology so ordinary staff could use it.
She refused to domesticate her wild garden into neat rows.
Word forms
| third person singular | domesticates |
|---|---|
| past tense | domesticated |
| past participle | domesticated |
| -ing form | domesticating |
Common combinations
- domesticate animals
- Many cultures domesticated animals for milk and wool.
- domesticate a species
- Scientists study how humans first domesticated the species.
- domesticate wild plants
- Early villagers began to domesticate wild plants near their camps.
- fully domesticated
- The cat is only partly tame, not fully domesticated.
- first domesticated
- Rice was first domesticated in Asia.
Synonyms and how they differ
- tame
- Tame describes one animal that has been made gentle, while domesticate refers to changing a whole species across generations.
- breed
- Breed focuses on producing young with chosen traits, whereas domesticate covers the wider process of bringing a species into human life.
- cultivate
- Cultivate is used for growing plants or land, so it does not fit animals the way domesticate does.
- train
- Train teaches a particular animal particular behavior, but it does not imply any change in the species.
Opposites
Word family
- domestication noun
- the process of domesticating animals or plants
- domesticated adjective
- living with or bred for human use; also, fond of home life
- domestic adjective
- relating to the home or to one's own country
- domesticity noun
- home life and household activities
Commonly confused: domesticate or domestic?
domesticate vs domestic
Domestic is an adjective meaning of the home or country, while domesticate is the verb for making something tame and useful.
Practice
Archaeologists believe people began to ___ wolves, which slowly became dogs.
Choose one answer.
Domesticate is the verb for bringing an animal species into human life. Cultivate is for plants or land, and domestic is an adjective, not a verb.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “domesticate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.