domestication

nounC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speech — domestic sits at #3,065leans written

Domestication is the taming of wild animals over generations. The domestication of the horse.

It changes the animal permanently, in the skull, the coat and the temperament. Domestication of the dog happened at least fifteen thousand years ago and possibly twice over.

Definitions of domestication

1noundomesticationThe taming of wild animals over generations.C1
“Domestication of the cat seems to have been the cat's idea.”

domestication is a process.

Where it comes from

Proto-Indo-European
*dem-
Medieval Latin
domesticātus
Middle French
domestiquer
English
domesticate
English, today
domestication

Built from

domesticō · Latin — to domesticate

From domesticate + -ion. domesticate 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

Practise this word

domestication in the wild

The exact timeline and mechanisms of the domestication of the horse have been subject to significant academic debate.
Domestication of the horse
Taylor argues that true domestication did not take place until around 2000 BCE.
Domestication of the horse
In plants, domestication affects genes for morphology, such as increasing seed size and stopping the shattering of cereal seedheads.
Domestication
The horse came under domestication around 5,500 years ago in central Asia as a riding animal.
Domestication
Other developments that are found very widely during this era are the domestication of animals, pottery, polished stone tools, and rectangular houses.
Neolithic Revolution

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the domesticō family

domesticated

domestication — used too rare to measure · point at the bar for the others

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