domain
/də(ʊ)ˈmeɪn
/noun
1An area of territory owned or controlled by a particular ruler or government: the French domains of the Plantagenets...
- The domains under her control included territories in both Burgundy and the Netherlands.
- The vast domain now had an area of nearly eleven and a half million square miles, and a population of more than a fifth of the people of the globe.
- The peripatetic household continued to gravitate towards the cities and towns of a ruler's domains, an urban environment providing the necessary infrastructures for court life.
Synonyms
realm, kingdom, empire, dominion, province, estate, territory, land, lands, dominions;
state, country;
preserve, zone, sphere, area, place
informal turf, spot, patch, stamping ground
British informal manor
1.1A specified sphere of activity or knowledge: the country’s isolation in the domain of sport...
- After dark, the street milieu is the domain of the shadowy.
- The one area where there is some similarity between the two wars is the domain of public opinion.
- This is the domain of theology, cosmology and psychology.
Synonyms
field, area, arena, sphere, discipline, sector, section, region, province, world
2 Computing A distinct subset of the Internet with addresses sharing a common suffix or under the control of a particular organization or individual.If the people with those accounts didn't bother to change their e-mail address when the domain expired, you can collect their passwords....
- The process for deciding ownership of Internet domains is flawed, biased and in drastic need of reform, an expert in Internet and e-commerce law has concluded in a study released today.
- Thus, identity indirectly controls the list of domains you may enter.
3 Physics A discrete region of magnetism in ferromagnetic material.Ferromagnetic materials consist of tiny individual domains in which the magnetic moments of all the component atoms or molecules point in the same direction....
- By altering the microstructure, we can create weak links between the ferromagnetic domains that should lead to new and interesting electronic networks.
- The magnetic domains are essentially tiny magnets, each with a north and south pole.
4 Mathematics The set of possible values of the independent variable or variables of a function.Ten separate regression analyses were carried out, one regression analysis corresponding to each of the ten domains of the independent variables....
- In this case, this is not a problem, since the domain of the sine function is all real numbers.
- One of the first papers which he published after arriving in the United States was on the Euclidean algorithm in principal ideal domains.
5 Biochemistry A distinct region of a complex molecule or structure.Structures of the third domain, complexed to different proteases, have been determined....
- In most of these proteins, the coiled-coil domains are flanked by protein domains that control the protein's distribution or specific function.
- The study of chimeric MyHCs has previously implicated these loop domains in the control of the enzymatic and biophysical properties of the motor domain.
Origin
Late Middle English (denoting heritable or landed property): from French domaine, alteration (by association with Latin dominus 'lord') of Old French demeine 'belonging to a lord' (see demesne).
A domain was formerly ‘heritable or landed property’. The word is from French domaine which goes back ultimately to Latin dominus ‘lord’. The computing use dates from the 1980s. See also dame