domesticate
domesticated; domesticating; domesticates
To domesticate something is to tame a wild animal or plant so it can live with people. Dogs and cats are called domesticated animals because they live with us peacefully.
Nobody knows who first domesticated a wolf, but whoever it was was a very important person. If people hadn't started living with wolves, slowly domesticating them and teaching them to get along with people, wolves would never have evolved into today's dogs. We usually talk about how to domesticate animals, but wild plants can be domesticated too.
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make fit for cultivation, domestic life, and service to humans“The horse was domesticated a long time ago”
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synonyms:
tame
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domesticise, domesticize, reclaim, tame
overcome the wildness of; make docile and tractable
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type of:
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accommodate, adapt
make fit for, or change to suit a new purpose
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domesticise, domesticize, reclaim, tame
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adapt (a wild plant or unclaimed land) to the environment“domesticate oats”
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synonyms:
cultivate, naturalise, naturalize, tame
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type of:
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accommodate, adapt
make fit for, or change to suit a new purpose
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accommodate, adapt
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overcome the wildness of; make docile and tractable
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synonyms:
domesticise, domesticize, reclaim, tame
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tame
make fit for cultivation, domestic life, and service to humans
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tame
Vocabulary lists containing domesticate
As the oldest of five sisters and the only one who can legally drive, Odilia must lead a supernatural odyssey from the Rio Grande to Mexico to return the body of a drowned man.
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