Other forms: domesticated, domesticating, domesticates
To domesticate is to tame a wild animal for life alongside people. Domesticate the horse, domesticated animals, domesticate a plant.
It is a change in the animal over generations rather than the taming of one individual, which is why a tame fox is not a domesticated one. Only a handful of large animals have ever been domesticated, which shaped which societies could farm.
1verbdomesticateTo tame a wild animal for life alongside people.
“Humans first domesticated dogs from wolves many thousands of years ago.”
domesticate is a taming.
Medieval Latin domesticare comes from domesticus, of the house, from domus, a house.
Proto-Indo-European
*dem-
Medieval Latin
domesticātus
Middle French
domestiquer
English, today
domesticate
Built from
1620; either Middle French domestiquer (Modern French domestiquer) or directly from Medieval Latin domesticātus, perfect passive participle of domesticō (“to domesticate”), see -ate. by surface analysis, domestic + -ate.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA