domesticating

verb

present participle of domesticate
as in cultivating
to change (a wild animal or plant) over time to make it more suited to life with or use by humans Humans domesticated wolves to produce man's best friend.

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of domesticating In a statement published in the Journal of Heredity, Bell suggested that the government should look into the possibility of domesticating manatees. — David Merritt Johns, The Atlantic, 27 June 2026 Tens of thousands of years ago, humans began domesticating wild wolves to make hunting, gathering food and protection easier, according to Science News. — K'mari Greene, AJC.com, 4 June 2026 Truly domesticating bees required a hive with movable frames, one that would allow beekeepers to examine their bees and harvest honey without destroying the colony. — Literary Hub, 27 May 2026 That means that winemakers across what is now France must have switched from domesticating wild grapes to propagating them directly—that is, cloning grapevines by taking cuttings of the plants to start new groves. — Jackie Flynn Mogensen, Scientific American, 24 Mar. 2026 And perhaps no one brand better exemplifies the nation's work than Track Trailer and its Tvan, a little 'drop trailer that's been domesticating the Outback for over a quarter-century. — New Atlas, 17 Mar. 2026 Lonpi Tipi added that domesticating larvae production ultimately would lead to solving problems related to access to protein- and nutrition-rich food. — Emmet Livingstone, NPR, 20 Sep. 2025 But where chimps might merely poke over the ashes, our lineage at some point took the next step in promoting and even domesticating the flames — perhaps picking a smoldering stick from the edges of one grassland, and lighting the grassland in the next valley over. — Peter Brannen, Big Think, 28 Aug. 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for domesticating
  1. cultivating
  2. training
  3. breeding
  4. propagating
  5. using
  6. producing
  7. utilizing
  8. raising
Verb
  • The normalization of transactional thinking in education therefore risks cultivating broader cultural acceptance of ethical compromise.
    — Jason Benedict, Fortune, 7 July 2026
  • Instead of cultivating the rough aliveness of our humanity, these tools seem geared toward replacing our clunky human efforts.
    — Rebekah Taussig, Time, 7 July 2026
Definition of cultivating
Verb
  • The department first began training a dozen of its firefighters to become certified drone pilots in 2022, Monterey County Now reported.
    — Jeremy Hsu, ArsTechnica, 10 July 2026
  • Nevertheless, even pre-training the AI takes considerably less time than rendering each frame by scratch, as was the case with Toy Story, or filming from scratch as happened with Moana.
    — Caroline Reid, Forbes.com, 10 July 2026
Definition of training
Verb
  • How to avoid a mosquito bite The best way to prevent infection is to stop mosquitoes from breeding around your home and avoid getting bit.
    — Karen Garcia, Los Angeles Times, 8 July 2026
  • For years, the only factory breeding sterile flies in the Western Hemisphere was in Panama, but the USDA invested $21 million to convert a site in southern Mexico from breeding fruit flies to recently start breeding screwworm flies.
    — John Hanna, Fortune, 8 July 2026
Definition of breeding
Verb
  • The free and open internet faces threats from companies propagating walled gardens designed to control your data and the rise of black-box AI systems.
    — Todd Spangler, Variety, 8 July 2026
  • For some vexillophiles, the issue is not so much who is propagating the spin-off Ross flag but the design itself.
    — Kelsey Ables, The Atlantic, 3 July 2026
Definition of propagating
Verb
  • Federal officials are using helicopters and ground vehicles to drive the horses into a large catch pen with holding corrals.
    — Susanne Rust, Los Angeles Times, 9 July 2026
  • But a growing number of ships are using a route close to the Omani coast instead, threatening Iran’s leverage over the waterway.
    — Brad Lendon, CNN Money, 9 July 2026
Definition of using
Verb
  • Instead of producing energy from heat, as with the radiothermal generators found on deep-space probes like Voyager 2, the NanoTritium system generates electricity directly.
    — David Szondy July 07, New Atlas, 8 July 2026
  • Tired of spending his days simply delighting in psychological torture and revenge, Lestat publicly chases the life of a famous rock star, writing and producing an album and performing in a cross-country tour while maintaining a fake vampire persona.
    — CT Jones, Rolling Stone, 7 July 2026
Definition of producing
Verb
  • The solution lies in flexible AI design and enterprise ownership, utilizing an orchestration layer to adapt across vendors and models.
    — Forbes.com, Forbes.com, 10 July 2026
  • Weidner is hoping to get the Alarmist beers back in distribution by Labor Day to bars, restaurants and stores, initially utilizing a contract brewer.
    — Robert Channick, Chicago Tribune, 9 July 2026
Definition of utilizing
Verb
  • Millions of homeowners who secured ultra-low mortgage rates before the Federal Reserve began raising interest rates in 2022 are reluctant to sell because doing so would likely mean taking on a much more expensive mortgage.
    — Samantha Delouya, CNN Money, 11 July 2026
  • If your diet is full of fresh fruits and vegetables, the cyclosporiasis outbreak spiking across the country may be raising concerns on what to eat.
    — Sara Moniuszko, USA Today, 10 July 2026
Definition of raising

Browse Nearby Words

domesticates
domesticating
domestic partner
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Cite this Entry

“Domesticating.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/domesticating. Accessed 13 Jul. 2026.

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