Literary notes about domestic (AI summary)
The word "domestic" functions with a wide range of meanings, adapting to contexts as varied as household life, social duties, animal breeding, and state affairs. It is sometimes used to denote work or service in the home, as seen when a character assumes the role of a domestic servant [1] or manages household concerns [2]. Yet the term also extends to describe matters of internal policy and civil peace, capturing the essence of internal community life and political order [3], [4]. Moreover, it is employed in discussions of natural selection and breed differences, referring to animals or cultivated varieties that have been altered by human care [5], [6]. The richness of its use—from everyday family interactions to the strategies of state governance—reveals how authors have long relied on "domestic" as a versatile term that bridges the personal and the public [7], [8].
- ‘“Anything else, my lord?” inquired the domestic.
— from Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens - Read the life of Mrs. Fletcher, and see how sanctification can help a woman with multitudinous domestic cares.
— from The Heart-Cry of Jesus by Byron J. Rees - Domestic peace and union were the natural consequences of the moderate and comprehensive policy embraced by the Romans.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - The public danger, which should have reconciled all domestic animosities, displayed the incurable madness of religious faction.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - If any well marked distinction existed between a domestic race and a species, this source of doubt would not so perpetually recur.
— from The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - I have endeavoured briefly in this chapter to show that the mental qualities of our domestic animals vary, and that the variations are inherited.
— from On the Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin - nor there thy labours end; New foes arise; domestic ills attend!
— from The Odyssey by Homer - To distinguish these two senses of the word, the latter is called general or political economy, and the former domestic or particular economy.
— from The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
