Domestication vs. Tame — What's the Difference?

Involves creating a human dependency.

May retain natural instincts.

The process of breeding species to live with humans.

Conditioning a wild animal to accept human presence.

Genetically modifying traits over generations.

Individual, not inheritable changes.

Aimed at making species useful to humans.

Often for specific, immediate tasks.

Serves broad human needs.

Reducing an animal's fear of humans.

Domestication is a sustained multi-generational relationship in which one group of organisms assumes a significant degree of influence over the reproduction and care of another group to secure a more predictable supply of resources from that second group. The domestication of plants and animals was a major cultural innovation ranked in importance with the conquest of fire, the manufacturing of tools, and the development of verbal language.Charles Darwin recognized the small number of traits that made domestic species different from their wild ancestors.

Brought from wildness into a domesticated or tractable state.

To cause to feel comfortable at home; make domestic.

Naturally unafraid; not timid

To adopt or make fit for domestic use or life.

Submissive; docile; fawning

To train or adapt (an animal or plant) to live in a human environment and be of use to humans.

Insipid; flat

To introduce and accustom (an animal or plant) into another region; naturalize.

Sluggish; languid; inactive

A plant or animal that has been adapted to live in a human environment.

To make tame; domesticate

The act of domesticating, or accustoming to home; the action of taming wild animals or breeding plants.

To subdue or curb

The act of domesticating, or making a legal instrument recognized and enforceable in a jurisdiction foreign to the one in which the instrument was originally issued or created.

To change from an uncontrolled or disorderly to a controlled state

(translation studies) The act of domesticating a text.

Not or no longer wild; domesticated.

The act of domesticating, or accustoming to home; the action of taming wild animals.

Mild and well-behaved; accustomed to human contact.

Adaptation to intimate association with human beings

(figurative) Of a person, well-behaved; not radical or extreme.

The attribute of having been domesticated

(obsolete) Of a non-Westernised person, accustomed to European society.

Accommodation to domestic life;

Not exciting.

Crushed; subdued; depressed; spiritless.

Capable of being represented as a finite closed polygonal chain.

(transitive) To make (an animal) tame; to domesticate.

(intransitive) To become tame or domesticated.

(transitive) To make gentle or meek.

To broach or enter upon; to taste, as a liquor; to divide; to distribute; to deal out.

To broach or enter upon; to taste, as a liquor; to divide; to distribute; to deal out.

To reduce from a wild to a domestic state; to make gentle and familiar; to reclaim; to domesticate; as, to tame a wild beast.

To subdue; to conquer; to repress; as, to tame the pride or passions of youth.

Reduced from a state of native wildness and shyness; accustomed to man; domesticated; domestic; as, a tame deer, a tame bird.

Crushed; subdued; depressed; spiritless.

Deficient in spirit or animation; spiritless; dull; flat; insipid; as, a tame poem; tame scenery.

Correct by punishment or discipline

Make less strong or intense; soften;

Adapt (a wild plant or unclaimed land) to the environment;

Overcome the wildness of; make docile and tractable;

Make fit for cultivation, domestic life, and service to humans;

Flat and uninspiring

Very restrained or quiet;

Brought from wildness into a domesticated state;

Very docile;

No, taming does not affect the genetic traits passed to offspring.

Wheat, rice, and tomatoes have all been domesticated for agricultural use.

It typically makes animals more docile and dependent on humans.

Yes, domesticated animals are generally more predisposed to interact with humans.

It occurs over many generations, spanning hundreds to thousands of years.

While many can be tamed, some are more resistant to taming due to strong wild instincts.

Humans selectively breed species for traits beneficial to them, influencing natural selection.

Yes, concerns include the welfare of the animal and the appropriateness of removing it from the wild.

Domestication alters the genetic makeup of a species, while taming does not involve genetic changes.

The silver fox has been domesticated through extensive breeding experiments in Russia.

Tamed wild animals can be unpredictable and may revert to wild behavior.

It allowed for the development of agriculture and settled societies.

Tamed animals may behave well in human presence but retain more of their wild behaviors.

Domestication offers predictable, stable traits across a species, beneficial for consistent human use.

It can reduce genetic diversity by focusing on specific traits, potentially impacting overall species resilience.