Domain

How to spell domain

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce domain

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does domain mean?

1. nounA particular area of activity, knowledge, or responsibility.
2. nounA named address space on the internet, registered as part of a website's web address.
3. nounAn area of land or territory owned or controlled by a ruler or state.

Domain in a sentence

• Tax law falls outside my domain of expertise.

• The company renewed its domain before the registration expired.

• The king extended his domain across the northern valleys.

• Staffing decisions are firmly within the manager's domain.

• She bought the matching domain for her new business site.

• The wildlife park lies within the public domain.

Where does domain come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word goes back to the Latin dominium, meaning 'lordship' or 'right of ownership', which was built on dominus, 'a lord or master', and ultimately on domus, the Latin word for 'a house or household'. The sense was therefore the land and property that a lord ruled over. It passed into Old French as 'demeine' or 'domaine', and English first borrowed it in the form 'demesne', which is still used in legal and historical writing for an estate held by its owner. The modern spelling 'domain' was reshaped later under the influence of the French 'domaine' and the Latin original, which is why the silent middle of the older 'demesne' was tidied away. Over the centuries the meaning broadened from a ruler's literal lands to any sphere of activity or knowledge, and in the late twentieth century it gained its computing sense, a named address space on the internet.

How the word is built

• dom- (from Latin dominus: lord, master)
• -ain (noun suffix via Old French)