domination

From Middle English domynacion, from Old French dominacion, from Latin dominātiō (“rule, dominion”), from dominor (“domineer; rule”); see dominate.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌdɒməˈneɪʃən/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌdɑːməˈneɪʃən/

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• Rhymes: -eɪʃən

domination (countable and uncountable, plural dominations)

1. The act of dominating; exercise of power in ruling; dominion; supremacy; authority, often when arbitrary or insolent.
   • (Can we date this quote by Burke?)

     In such a people, the haughtiness of domination combines with the spirit of freedom.

   • 2001, Angus Stewart, Theories of Power and Domination, →ISBN:

     First, relations of power and domination have been and continue to be significantly constitutive of social relations in modern societies.

   • 2012, Sandra Lee Bartky, Femininity and Domination, →ISBN:

     What this means is that the subordination of women by men is pervasive, that it orders the relationship of the sexes in every area of life, that a sexual politics of domination is as much in evidence in the private spheres of the family, ordinary social life, and sexuality as in the traditionally public spheres of government and the economy.

2. A ruling party; a party in power.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Burke to this entry?)

3. A high order of angels in the celestial hierarchy.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book V”, in Paradise Lost. A Poem Written in Ten Books, London: Printed [by Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […] [a]nd by Robert Boulter […] [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: The Text Exactly Reproduced from the First Edition of 1667: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:

     Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, powers.

   • 1872, The Sacristy: A Quarterly Review of Ecclesiastical Art and Literature, page 20:

     The succession of orders given in this passage is not exactly the same as in the succeeding chapters, in which it is as follows: -- Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dominations, Virtues, Powers; Principalities, Archangels, Angels.

   • 2010, Matthew Bunson, Angels A to Z: A Who's Who of the Heavenly Host, →ISBN, page 80:

     According to Dionysius, the dominations have the duty in the heavenly host of regulating the tasks of the angels and "through them the majesty of God is manifested." Through the efforts of the dominations - who are naturally seen only rarely by mortals -- the very order of the cosmos is maintained.

4. A fetish characterized by control/power over and discipline of one's sexual partner.
   • 2017, Teejay LeCapois, The Black Dominatrix Universe, →ISBN, page 121:

     By night, I am Mistress Shay Noir, the Black queen of domination. The world's most beautiful sadist.

5. (topology) Synonym of cover
   • 1998, Teresa W. Haynes, Stephen T. Hedetniemi, & Peter J. Slater, Fundamentals of Domination in Graphs, →ISBN, page 299:

     With more than 200 research papers published on the algorithmic complexity of domination and related parameters of graphs, it is difficult to know what to cover in a relatively short chapter on the subject, especially since it could take quite a few pages just to cover the preliminaries of computational complexity and the many algorithm design paradigms that have been applied to domination problems.

• dominate
• dominion
• dominator
• domineering

• domination in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• domination in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

• admonition

From Latin dominātiō (“rule, dominion”), from dominor (“domineer; rule”).

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domination f (plural dominations)

1. domination

• (domination): soumission

• “domination” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).