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View synonyms for domestication

domestication

[ duh-mes-ti-key-shuhn ]

noun

  1. the act or process of taming an animal for human use or companionship:

    Shortly after their domestication as companions, dogs were put to use as weapons of war.

  2. the act or process of adapting a plant to cultivation or converting it to household use:

    The domestication of modern wheat from wild grasses occurred in the Fertile Crescent and fueled the development of Indo-European culture.

  3. the act or process of making someone accustomed to household life or affairs:

    When my friend and former business partner not only got married but became pregnant, I saw it as yet another step in her domestication.

  4. the act or process of making a strange or challenging person or thing more familiar and acceptable:

    The author resists domestication of Nietzsche's philosophy, restoring the shock of his style and thought and interpreting him as a revolutionary philosopher.



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Word History and Origins

Origin of domestication1

First recorded in 1645–55; from Latin domesticāt-, stem of domesticāre “to dwell in a house” ( domesticate ( def ) ) + -ion ( def )

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Example Sentences

It's worth stopping for a moment to consider just how weird they are within the realm of domestication.

The set of genes associated with the domestication of many crops direct the production of two key hormones, florigen and antiflorigen.

Those genomes, along with those of modern dogs and wolves, show how dogs have moved around the world with people since their domestication.

In 1959, Belyaev began a project that has greatly informed our best guesses as to what we believe the earliest steps of domestication were.

Animal prey and their spirits represented something close to equal partners in the struggle for survival, rather than being part of the kind of dominant-subservient relationship more likely to be associated with animal domestication.

What I see happening, with writers like Charlaine Harris and Stephenie Meyer, is the domestication of the vampire.

There is a disease to which the Horse, from his state of domestication, is frequently subject.

This wide diversity is the result of long domestication, under almost every conceivable variety of condition.

The adaptation of the unicorns proceeded in the following years, but not their domestication.

This lies partly in its inherited nature and original surroundings, but suggests long domestication.

He has shown us that even on the steppe the cultivation of cereals precedes the domestication of sheep and cattle.

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domesticatedomestic court