do·mes·ti·cate
də-ˈme-sti-ˌkāt 
domesticated; domesticating
1
2
: to adapt (an animal or plant) over time from a wild or natural state especially by selective breeding to life in close association with and to the benefit of humans
The Asian equids, including the now-endangered Przewalski's horse, apparently provided the stock from which the horse was domesticated five to six thousand years ago.—
Bruce J. MacFadden
Bruce J. MacFaddenBut every reader addicted to coffee can thank ancient Ethiopian farmers for domesticating the coffee plant.—Jared Diamond
Jared Diamond3
: to cause to become adapted to life in a household : to make fit for domestic life
wasn't interested in becoming domesticated
4
: to bring to the level of ordinary people
do·mes·ti·cate
də-ˈme-sti-kət
-ˌkāt
: a domesticated (see domesticate entry 1 sense 2) animal or plant
Examples of domesticate in a Sentence
Verb
Horses and oxen have been domesticated to work on farms.
She jokes that dogs are easier to domesticate than men.
Recent Examples on the WebEd Cara / Gizmodo, Quartz, 3 Apr. 2024
Finbar is the longtime gunfighter who works by a strict moral code, looking to finally hang up his spurs and domesticate himself.
—Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times, 30 Mar. 2024
The reason: They have been domesticated for the past 10,000 years.
—Ella Gonzales, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 8 Mar. 2024
Dogs have been found in much older graves than this Iron Age cemetery, dating back toward the days when they may have been domesticated beginning 16,000 years or so ago.
—Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Feb. 2024
Look at red frangipani trees and indigo plants, both endemic to the region, as well as a vanilla plant, which was first domesticated in Mexico.
—Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, 23 Nov. 2023
While the majority of yaks are domesticated, wild yaks still exist in small groups.
—Jack Knudson, Discover Magazine, 6 Feb. 2024
Those rare billing and cooing macaws, Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway), have become quite domesticated while raising their expanding brood.
—Miami Staff, Miami Herald, 30 Jan. 2024
Since humans domesticated dogs, any evolutionary insights into a ubiquitous behavior like tail wagging could reveal more about early humans, too.
—Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Jan. 2024
Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 11 Jan. 2024
These animals and crops were gradually joined by China’s many other domesticates.
—Jared Diamond, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019
Today some wild-horse-advocacy groups think of wild horses as a reintroduced native species; other groups cast them, more negatively, as feral animals, domesticates that escaped their bonds.
—Tove Danovich, The Atlantic, 18 Aug. 2023
And whereas other domesticates, like dogs, look quite distinct from their wild ancestors, the average domestic cat largely retains the wild body plan.
—Andrew C. Kitchener, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2015
This explains the extremely low genetic diversity in japonica, if there's a sweep up in frequency of a particular ancestral haplotype then what were polymorphisms in the wild type become monomorphic in the domesticate.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 7 June 2011
Many of the herbivores grazing the mixed scrub are tough domesticates standing in as surrogates for extinct species.
—Christopher Preston, The Atlantic, 9 Apr. 2020
The idea was first floated in 2016 when a group including University of São Paulo plant physiologist Lázaro Eustáquio Pereira Peres revealed a plan to re-domesticate tomatoes.
—Jonathon Keats, Discover Magazine, 15 Apr. 2019
Their brains are smaller than chimpanzees’, a shift also seen in many domesticates.
—John Hawks, WSJ, 25 Jan. 2019
Verb
But there’s long been a fierce academic debate about when and how exactly chicken became domesticated.
—Ed Cara / Gizmodo, Quartz, 3 Apr. 2024
Finbar is the longtime gunfighter who works by a strict moral code, looking to finally hang up his spurs and domesticate himself.
—Katie Walsh, Los Angeles Times, 30 Mar. 2024
The reason: They have been domesticated for the past 10,000 years.
—Ella Gonzales, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 8 Mar. 2024
Dogs have been found in much older graves than this Iron Age cemetery, dating back toward the days when they may have been domesticated beginning 16,000 years or so ago.
—Brian Handwerk, Smithsonian Magazine, 14 Feb. 2024
Look at red frangipani trees and indigo plants, both endemic to the region, as well as a vanilla plant, which was first domesticated in Mexico.
—Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, 23 Nov. 2023
While the majority of yaks are domesticated, wild yaks still exist in small groups.
—Jack Knudson, Discover Magazine, 6 Feb. 2024
Those rare billing and cooing macaws, Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway), have become quite domesticated while raising their expanding brood.
—Miami Staff, Miami Herald, 30 Jan. 2024
Since humans domesticated dogs, any evolutionary insights into a ubiquitous behavior like tail wagging could reveal more about early humans, too.
—Sarah Kuta, Smithsonian Magazine, 17 Jan. 2024
Noun
As the world’s first domesticates, dogs were tamed and domesticated gradually through the generations.
—Sam Walters, Discover Magazine, 11 Jan. 2024
These animals and crops were gradually joined by China’s many other domesticates.
—Jared Diamond, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019
Today some wild-horse-advocacy groups think of wild horses as a reintroduced native species; other groups cast them, more negatively, as feral animals, domesticates that escaped their bonds.
—Tove Danovich, The Atlantic, 18 Aug. 2023
And whereas other domesticates, like dogs, look quite distinct from their wild ancestors, the average domestic cat largely retains the wild body plan.
—Andrew C. Kitchener, Scientific American, 1 Sep. 2015
This explains the extremely low genetic diversity in japonica, if there's a sweep up in frequency of a particular ancestral haplotype then what were polymorphisms in the wild type become monomorphic in the domesticate.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 7 June 2011
Many of the herbivores grazing the mixed scrub are tough domesticates standing in as surrogates for extinct species.
—Christopher Preston, The Atlantic, 9 Apr. 2020
The idea was first floated in 2016 when a group including University of São Paulo plant physiologist Lázaro Eustáquio Pereira Peres revealed a plan to re-domesticate tomatoes.
—Jonathon Keats, Discover Magazine, 15 Apr. 2019
Their brains are smaller than chimpanzees’, a shift also seen in many domesticates.
—John Hawks, WSJ, 25 Jan. 2019
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'domesticate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Dictionary Entries Near domesticate
Cite this Entry
“Domesticate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/domesticate. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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Kids Definition
domesticate
verb
do·mes·ti·cate
də-ˈmes-ti-ˌkāt
domesticated; domesticating
: to adapt to living with human beings and to serving their purposes
domestication
noun
-ˌmes-ti-ˈkā-shən
More from Merriam-Webster on domesticate
Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for domesticate
Nglish: Translation of domesticate for Spanish Speakers
Britannica English: Translation of domesticate for Arabic Speakers
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