domestic
Pluraldomestics
- 1Existing or taking place within a particular country rather than abroad.
The government raised tariffs to protect domestic industries.
Domestic demand for electric cars rose sharply last year.
UsageUsually before a noun: domestic flights, the domestic market. The opposite is international or foreign.
Similarnational, internal, home
Oppositeforeign, international, overseas, external
Note
Economists and political scientists lean on this meaning, set against international or foreign. Gross domestic product measures the output of a national economy, and scholars write of international economic flows "relative to domestic ones." With nouns like politics or demand, the contrast is home country versus abroad, never house versus street. Domestic industry can go either way, since historians also use it for goods made in workers' homes.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- GDP measures the output of a national economy. imf.org
- Scholars use the quoted wording when comparing international and domestic economic flows. wzb.eu
- Domestic industry can also mean production within a household; the noun industry does not guarantee the national sense. marxists.org
- 2Belonging to or happening in the home and family life, whether household work such as cooking and cleaning or the relations between the people who live together.
Domestic life felt calmer once the children started school.
He found the endless domestic responsibilities surprisingly satisfying.
UsageUsually before a noun (domestic chores, domestic life); domestic violence is abuse between partners or family members.
Note
The core sense, and the one the Latin carries most plainly: the word came through Middle French domestique from Latin domesticus, built on domus, "house, home." Its other uses stretch that house outward, to a nation's internal affairs, to animals kept by people, to the servants who run a household. Paired with life or responsibilities, it stays firmly inside the home itself.
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Domestic came through Middle French domestique from Latin domesticus, ultimately from domus, meaning house or home. en.wiktionary.org
- The household meaning is present in Latin domesticus. en.wiktionary.org
- 3Kept by humans as a pet or on a farm, rather than living in the wild.
Domestic cattle have been bred for milk over thousands of years.
The shelter takes in domestic rabbits that owners can no longer keep.
Similardomesticated, tame
Less common meanings
- 4An argument or fight, sometimes violent, between members of the same household.
Officers attended yet another domestic at the same address.
The shouting next door escalated into a full-blown domestic.
UsageUsually a domestic or domestics, said by police and reporters; in careful writing, domestic dispute or domestic incident is safer.
Similarrow, fight, argument, quarrel, dispute
Note
Police shorthand for a domestic dispute or incident, the adjective standing alone as a noun. Harry Keeble's Baby X (2010) recalls Child Protection officers dismissed as social workers who "mopped up after domestics."
- 5A servant employed to do the cooking, cleaning, and other work in a household.
The household employed three domestics, including a cook and a maid.
A live-in domestic prepared the meals and cleaned the large house.
UsageHere a domestic is a person; in police talk a domestic is a household fight, so the context decides which is meant.
Similarservant, maid, housekeeper
Note
A servant named for the place rather than the work. Latin domesticus, from domus, 'house', made this someone of the household. It is an ordinary countable noun, so the plural is domestics, as in Mary Romero's Maid in the U.S.A. (1992).
- 6Inclined to stay at home rather than go out or socialize.
Never one for nightclubs or crowded parties, Martin was a thoroughly domestic man who liked nothing better than a quiet evening at home.
Even in college she was more domestic than her roommates, who went out every weekend while she stayed in with a book.
Note
Here the word describes temperament, and it takes comparison readily: someone can be more domestic, or "not as domestic as you." It also accepts a hyphenated negative, as in Havelock Ellis's Studies in the Psychology of Sex, where some women are described as "non-domestic." Said of a person, it can carry judgment, and in George Whitmore's line the comparison is delivered "rather nastily."
Checked 6 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Havelock Ellis's Studies in the Psychology of Sex describes some women as "non-domestic." gutenberg.org
- George Whitmore's fictional narrator uses "not as domestic as you" and describes delivering the comparison "rather nastily." en.wiktionary.org
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Origin
Latin domus, meaning "house, home," gave domesticus, which reached English by way of Middle French domestique.