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domicile

UK/ˈdɒm.ɪ.saɪl/US/ˈdɑ.mɪ.saɪl/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,551 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: domiciles

A domicile is the place somebody legally has their home. Change of domicile, domicile for tax, non-domiciled status.

It is not the same as residence, and the difference is money: residence is where you live now, while domicile is where you permanently belong, which is what decides inheritance tax in many countries.

Definitions of domicile

  1. 1noundomicileThe place somebody legally has their home.C1

    “For tax purposes, his domicile is still France, even though he lives in London.”

domicile is a place.

Where it comes from

Latin domicilium comes from domus, a house.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *dem-

  2. Latin

    domicilium

  3. Middle French

    domicile

  4. Middle English

    domicelle

  5. English, today

    domicile

Middle English domicelle, domicylie, from Middle French domicile and directly from Latin domicilium.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

domicile in the wild

  • Generally domicile can be divided into domicile of origin, domicile of choice, and domicile by operation of law (also known as domicile of dependency).

    Domicile (law)

  • When determining the domicile of an individual, a court applies its own law and understanding of what domicile is.

    Domicile (law)

  • There is a strong presumption in favour of the continuance of a domicile of origin.

    Thesavalamai

  • In Japan, the registered domicile is a similar concept.

    Place of birth

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.