We didn't domesticate cats; cats domesticated us.
Source: tatoeba (11073820)
Domesticate
//dəˈmɛ.stɪ.keɪt//
Synonyms for "domesticate" (81 found)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Related word relations
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
More general
5 entriesderived
8 entriesderived from
1 entrieshas context
2 entriesmanner of
2 entriesrelated to
12 entriessimilar
4 entriesTranslations
69 translations across 29 languages.
Armenian
3 entries- ընտելանալ verb ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- ընտելացնել verb (to make domestic)
- ընտելացնել verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Bulgarian
2 entries- опитомявам verb (to make domestic)
- опитомявам verb (to make fit for domestic life)
Catalan
2 entries- domesticar verb (to make domestic)
- domesticar verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Chinese Mandarin
1 entries- 歸化 /归化 verb (translation studies)
Danish
4 entries- domesticere verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- gøre til husdyr verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- tæmme verb (to make domestic)
- tæmme verb (to make fit for domestic life)
Dutch
3 entries- domesticeren verb (to make domestic)
- domesticeren verb (to make fit for domestic life)
- domesticeren verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Finnish
1 entries- kesyttää verb (to make domestic)
French
1 entries- domestiquer verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Galician
2 entries- domesticar verb (to make domestic)
- domesticar verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
German
1 entries- domestizieren verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Greek
3 entries- εξημερώνω verb (to make domestic)
- εξημερώνω verb (to make fit for domestic life)
- εξημερώνω verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Hungarian
2 entries- domesztikál verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- háziasít verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Icelandic
1 entries- temja verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Ido
2 entries- domestikeskar verb ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- domestikigar verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Italian
2 entries- addomesticare verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- domesticare verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Japanese
1 entries- 馴らす verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Middle English
1 entries- daunten verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Norwegian Bokmål
1 entries- domestisere verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Old English
3 entries- temian verb (to make domestic)
- temian verb (to make fit for domestic life)
- temian verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Polish
4 entries- udamawiać verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- udamawiać się verb ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- udomawiać verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- udomawiać się verb ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Portuguese
4 entries- domesticar verb (to make domestic)
- domesticar verb (to make fit for domestic life)
- domesticar verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- domesticar-se verb ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Quechua
1 entries- uyway verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Romanian
2 entries- domestici verb (to make domestic)
- domestici verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Russian
4 entries- одома́шнивать verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- одома́шнить verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- прируча́ть verb (to make domestic)
- приручи́ть verb (to make domestic)
Spanish
4 entries- domesticar verb (to make domestic)
- domesticar verb (to make fit for domestic life)
- domesticar verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- domesticarse verb ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Swedish
1 entries- domesticera verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Turkish
4 entries- ehlileşmek verb ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- ehlileştirmek verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- evcilleşmek verb ((intransitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- evcilleştirmek verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Ukrainian
2 entries- одома́шнити verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
- одома́шнювати verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Vietnamese
1 entries- thuần hoá verb ((transitive) to adapt to live with humans)
Sample sentences
4 total sentences available.
"To answer your question, Tai's fine. She mostly just smokes socially these days." "You're domesticating her!" "We're domesticating each other. The other day I found myself reading a home decorating blog."
Source: wiktionary
The Russians claim to have successfully domesticated foxes.
Source: wiktionary
Dogs have clearly domesticated more than cats.
Source: wiktionary
Keep exploring
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.