# bailiwick

Pronunciation: say "BAY-li-wik" /ˈbeɪ.lɪ.wɪk/

## Noun

1. A person's area of concern or activity, the field in which they have skill or authority.
   - Simple: The area of work or interest that someone knows well or is in charge of.
   - _Tax law is outside my bailiwick, so you'll want to talk to a specialist._
   - _The festival's music lineup has long been the director's personal bailiwick._
2. The district over which a bailie or bailiff has legal authority.
   - Simple: The area that a bailiff or bailie is in charge of.
   - _Each bailiff answered to the crown for keeping the peace in his own bailiwick._
   - _The road crossed into a neighboring bailiwick, where another bailiff held authority._

## Origin

This compound puts together bailie, an old word for a bailiff, with wick, meaning a dwelling. Wick traces back to Old English wīc.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/bailiwick (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).