Domestic

How to spell domestic

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce domestic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does domestic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the home, the household, or family life.
2. adjectiveRelating to the internal affairs or market of one's own country, as opposed to foreign.
3. adjectiveOf an animal, kept by or living with humans rather than wild.

Domestic in a sentence

• She shared the domestic chores evenly with her flatmate.

• The airline offers cheaper fares on domestic routes than on international ones.

• The cat is a domestic species that thrives indoors.

• The council runs classes on domestic budgeting and cooking.

• The government focused on domestic policy rather than overseas trade.

• Farmers rely on domestic livestock for milk and wool.

Where does domestic come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin domesticus, meaning 'belonging to the household', which was built on domus, the ordinary Latin word for a house or home. That same domus root sits quietly inside a whole family of English words, including 'domicile', 'dome', and even 'dominate', since the head of a Roman house was the dominus. English took domestic in through Old French domestique during the late 1400s, at first to describe anything connected with the home or family. From there the meaning broadened in two practical directions: it came to describe animals tamed to live with people, and, by analogy of a country being like a large household, it grew to mean 'internal to one's own nation' as opposed to foreign. The spelling stays close to the Latin, so remembering domus 'house' keeps the single letters and the -tic ending in place.

How the word is built

• domus (house, home)
• -tic-/-ic (adjective suffix meaning 'relating to')