domain

n 1: a particular environment or walk of life; "his social sphere

is limited"; "it was a closed area of employment"; "he's

out of my orbit" [syn: {sphere}, {area}, {orbit}, {field},

{arena}]

2: territory over which rule or control is exercised; "his

domain extended into Europe"; "he made it the law of the

land" [syn: {demesne}, {land}]

3: the set of values of the independent variable for which a

function is defined [ant: {range}]

4: people in general; especially a distinctive group of people

with some shared interest; "the Western world" [syn: {world}]

5: a knowledge domain that you are interested in or are

communicating about; "it was a limited domain of

discourse"; "here we enter the region of opinion"; "the

realm of the occult" [syn: {region}, {realm}]

domain

1. In the theory of functions, the set of

argument values for which a {function} is defined.

See {domain theory}.

2. A group of computers whose {hostnames} share a

common suffix, the "domain name". The last component of this

is the {top-level domain}.

See {administrative domain}, {Domain Name System}, {fully

qualified domain name}.

3. {Distributed Operating Multi Access Interactive Network}.

4. A specific phase of the {software life cycle}

in which a developer works. Domains define developers' and

users' areas of responsibility and the scope of possible

relationships between products.

5. The subject or market in which a piece of software is

designed to work.

(1997-12-26)