Pronounced: kuhm-PUNGK-shuhs, adj
Notes: You may be able to figure out the meaning (if you don’t already know it)
Yesterday’s word
The word demesne means
- possession of land as one’s own
- an estate or part of an estate occupied, controlled by and worked for the exclusive use of the owner
First usage
Our word came into English in the mid to late 1200s
Background / Comments
When I saw the pronunciation, I suspected that our word came from French, and it does: it came from Middle English demeine, which came from the Anglo-French word demesne, which came from the Old French word demein, which came from the Late Latin word dominicum, which is a form of dominicus (of a master).
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 