Licensed from Columbia University Press
Licensed from Columbia University Press
See D. Katzman, Seven Days a Week (1981); L. Martin, The Servant Problem (1985); P. Palmer, Domesticity and Dirt (1989).
Licensed from Columbia University Press
Licensed from Columbia University Press
Licensed from Columbia University Press
Total market value of the goods and services produced by a nation's economy during a specific period of time. GDP is customarily reported on an annual basis. It is defined to include all final goods and services—that is, those that are produced by the economic resources located in that nation regardless of their ownership and are not resold in any form. GDP differs from gross national product (GNP), which is defined to include all final goods and services produced by resources owned by that nation's residents, whether located in the nation or elsewhere.
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Drama in which the main characters are ordinary people. This form of tragedy contrasts with Classical tragedy, in which the main characters are of royal or aristocratic rank. An early domestic tragedy, A Warning for Faire Women (1599), deals with the murder of a merchant by his wife. The form became popular in the mid-18th century and reached its maturity in the 19th-century bourgeois tragedies of Henrik Ibsen. Gerhart Hauptmann, Eugene O'Neill, and Arthur Miller wrote important 20th-century domestic tragedies.
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Production system widespread in 17th-century Europe in which merchant-employers “put out” materials to rural home workers, who then returned finished products to the employers for payment. The domestic system differed from the handicraft system of home production in that the workers neither bought materials nor sold products. It undermined the urban guilds and brought the first widespread industrial employment of women and children. The system was generally superseded by employment in factories but was retained in the 20th century in some industries, notably watchmaking in Switzerland, toy manufacturing in Germany, and many industries in India and China.
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Breed of domestic cat. Show standards call for a sturdily built cat with strong-boned legs, a round head, round eyes, and ears that are rounded at the tips. The coat must be short and may be of almost any colour or pattern. Some colours, such as blue cream, are infrequently found in shorthairs; others, such as tabby (stripes and mottled patterns in silver, brown, blue, and red), are common.
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Employment of hired workers by private households for tasks including housecleaning, cooking, child care, gardening, and personal service. It also includes the performance of similar tasks for hire in public institutions and businesses, including hotels and boardinghouses. In ancient Greece and Rome domestic service was performed almost exclusively by slaves. In medieval Europe serfs provided much of the necessary labour force. Indentured servants were widely used in colonial America, as were black slaves in the pre-Civil War South. In Victorian England many middle- and upper-class households hired domestic servants; the royalty and gentry often employed huge staffs with an elaborate hierarchy. Domestic service has declined in the U.S. and Europe since the early 1920s, a trend attributed to the leveling of social classes, greater job opportunities for women, and the spread of labour-saving household devices.
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Domesticated carnivore (Felis catus) that retains many characteristics of the larger wild cats but differs in coat and size. Breeds are either shorthaired (e.g., Siamese) or longhaired (e.g., Persian). Domestic cats are usually white, black, yellow, or gray and sometimes have markings of a different colour. A pattern of dark stripes or swirls on a lighter background is called tabby. Males may reach lengths of 28 in. (71 cm), and females are usually about 20 in. (51 cm) long. Weights generally vary from 6 to 10 lb (2.5 to 4.5 kg), though nonpedigreed cats may weigh up to 28 lb (13 kg). The most closely related wild species are the North African wildcats (including Felix lybica). Valued for their mouse and rat hunting, which protected farmers' grain supplies, cats were being domesticated in ancient Egypt by 1500 BC. The Cat Fanciers' Association now recognizes about 37 breeds.
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