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domesticate

do·mes·ti·cate/dəˈmɛ.stɪ.keɪt/verb, noun

domesticate is a verb meaning “To make domestic” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled D-O-M-E-S-T-I-C-A-T-E and has 4 syllables (do·mes·ti·cate), and it appears about once in every 8 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does domesticate mean?

verb

  1. 1

    To make domestic.

  2. 2

    To make (more) fit for domestic life.

  3. 3

    To adapt to live with humans.

    The Russians claim to have successfully domesticated foxes.

  4. 4

    To adapt to live with humans.

    Dogs have clearly domesticated more than cats.

  5. 5

    To make a legal instrument recognized and enforceable in a jurisdiction foreign to the one in which the instrument was originally issued or created.

  6. 6

    To amend the elements of a text to fit local culture.

noun

  1. 1

    An animal or plant that has been domesticated.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce domesticate?

  • /dəˈmɛ.stɪ.keɪt/
  • /-stə-/

As a noun (“An animal or plant that has been domesticated”): /dəˈmɛ.stɪ.kət/, /-stə-/, /-kɪt/.

Domesticate has 4 syllables, split do·mes·ti·cate in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-domesticate.ogg, En-us-domesticate-noun.ogg, En-au-domesticate.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of domesticate

  • domesticates present, singular, he/she/it, plural
  • domesticating participle, present
  • domesticated participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is domesticate?

Domesticate appears about once in every 8 million words in written English, the 85,266th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Domesticate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Portuguesedomesticar (to make domestic), domesticar-se ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Spanishdomesticar (to make domestic), domesticarse ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Frenchdomestiquer ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Germandomestizieren ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does domesticate come from?

First attested in 1620; either borrowed from Middle French domestiquer (Modern French domestiquer) or directly from Medieval Latin domesticātus, perfect passive participle of domesticō (“to domesticate”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix). By surface analysis, domestic + -ate.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).