Other forms: domains
A domain is the name a site is found at. Register a domain, the domain expired, a domain name.
It exists because numbers are hard to remember: the domain is a label that the name servers turn back into an address. You never own one outright — you rent it, and letting it lapse can lose an organisation its identity overnight. The older sense is a lord's territory.
1noundomainThe name a website is found at.
“We bought a domain for our new business so customers could find our website.”
2nounareaAn area of territory or of knowledge.
“Ancient history is outside my domain, so you'd better ask a specialist.”
domain is a name, or a territory.
The Latin dominus is master. A domain is the ground a master rules — or, now, the name a website lives under.
hooks ontomaster
Old French demaine comes from Latin dominium, ownership, from dominus, a lord. Dominion is the same root.
Old French
demaine
Middle English
demayne
English, today
domain
Built from
From Middle English demayne, from Old French demaine. From Middle English demayne, demain (“rule”), from Old French demeine, demaine, demeigne, domaine (“power”), (French domaine), from Latin dominium (“property, right of ownership”), from dominus (“master, proprietor, owner”). a doublet of demesne and dominium, and closely related to dominion and domino. See also dame, and compare demain, danger, dungeon.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA