domestique

domestique

See also: domestiqué

English

WOTD – 8 July 2022

Etymology

German professional cyclist Udo Bölts (right) riding as a domestique for Jan Ullrich, who went on to win the 1997 Tour de France.

Borrowed from French domestique (“domestic servant, maid”),[1] from domestique (“domestic”, adjective), from Latin domesticus (“of the house, domestic; familiar; native”), from domus (“home, house; place of one's birth or residence, native country”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dem- (“to build (up); to arrange, put together”)) + -ticus (suffix forming adjectives from nouns). Doublet of domestic.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌdə(ʊ)mɛˈstiːk/, /ˌdɒ-/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /dəˌmɛˈstik/
• Rhymes: -iːk
• Hyphenation: do‧mes‧tique

Noun

domestique (plural domestiques)

1. (cycle racing) A cyclist on a cycle racing team whose role is to assist the team's designated leaders (for example, by riding in front of them to create a slipstream, or to set the pace), even if at the expense of their own individual performance.

   Synonym: water carrier

   • 2003 July 24, Matt Majendie, “Domestique Bliss”, in BBC Sport‎, archived from the original on 26 October 2021:

     In a recent poll [Sean] Yates was voted one of the top-10 domestiques of all time, a crucial cog to any leader's Tour ambitions. […] To many casual observers, the role of domestique is not a particularly rewarding one. Yates begs to differ.

   • 2006 July 15, “Tour de France 2006: Life is rarely dull among the bottle-carriers and peloton pushers”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎, London: Guardian News & Media, ISSN 0261-3077, OCLC 229952407, archived from the original on 15 March 2016:

     […] Bram De Groot, a domestique with the Dutch Rabobank team, drops out the back, one arm in the air. The team car responds instantly, swinging out of the line of support vehicles behind the peloton and racing, klaxon sounding, up to De Groot. The window opens and a hand emerges with a bidon (plastic drinks bottle). De Groot places it in his back pocket and the hand emerges with another. This one goes down the back of his shirt, and it is joined by five more. Then off he sprints to deliver them to thirsty team-mates. De Groot is one of the domestiques and this is their lot. They continually drop off, collecting bidons and sprinting back into the peloton with grotesquely bulging shirts.

Translations

cyclist on a cycle racing team whose role is to assist the team’s designated leaders, even if at the expense of their own individual performance

Catalan: please add this translation if you can Czech: domestik (cs) m Dutch: knecht (nl) m Finnish: apukuski French: équipier (fr) m, équipière (fr) f German: Domestik (de) m, Domestikin (de) f Hebrew: פּוֹעֵל‎ (he) m (po'él), פּוֹעֶלֶת‎ f (pó'élet) Italian: gregario (it) m, gregaria (it) f Japanese: アシスト (ashisuto) Korean: 도메스티크 (domeseutikeu) Latvian: gregari Russian: домести́к (ru) m (domestík), гре́гари (ru) m or f (grégari) Spanish: gregario (es) m, gregaria (es) f

See also

• pacemaker

References

1. “domestique, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.

Further reading

• domestique on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• glossary of cycling on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• semi-quoted, semiquoted

---

French

Etymology

From Latin domesticus (“of the house, domestic; familiar; native”), from domus (“home, house; place of one's birth or residence, native country”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dṓm (“home, house”), from *dem- (“to build (up); to arrange, put together”)) + -ticus (suffix forming adjectives from nouns).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dɔ.mɛs.tik/

• Audio

  (file)

Adjective

domestique (plural domestiques)

1. domestic

Derived terms

• animal domestique
• chat domestique
• moineau domestique
• tégénaire domestique

Noun

domestique m or f by sense (plural domestiques)

1. servant; maid
2. cleaner, housemaid

   Synonym: employé de maison

Descendants

• → English: domestique
• → German: Domestik

Further reading

• “domestique”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

---

Portuguese

Verb

domestique

1. inflection of domesticar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

---

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /domesˈtike/ [d̪o.mesˈt̪i.ke]
• Rhymes: -ike
• Syllabification: do‧mes‧ti‧que

Verb

domestique

1. inflection of domesticar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative