bailiwick
noun
Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti
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The first half of the word bailiwick comes from the Middle English word for "bailiff"—in this case, a term referring to a sheriff or chief officer of a town in medieval England, not the officer who assists today in U.S. courtrooms. Bailiff comes, via Anglo-French, from the Medieval Latin verb bajulare, meaning "to care for" or "to support." The second half of bailiwick comes from wik, a Middle English word for "dwelling place" or "village," which ultimately hails from the Latin word vicus, meaning "village." (This root is also thought to have given English -wich and -wick, suffixes used in place names like Norwich and Warwick.) Although bailiwick dates from the 15th century, the "special domain of knowledge" sense we use most often today did not appear in English until the middle of the 19th century.
Synonyms
Examples of bailiwick in a Sentence
New York Daily News Editorial Board, New York Daily News, 23 May 2024
Marcos brings the votes of his father’s bailiwick in the Ilocano-speaking region of northern Luzon to the ticket, while Duterte will likely deliver votes from the Visayan-speaking southern part of the country.
—Sheila S. Coronel, Foreign Affairs, 5 May 2022
And for all the deserved flack first-year defensive coordinator Steve Wilks has received this season, coordinating a secondary to handle long-developing plays in zone coverage is his bailiwick.
—Dieter Kurtenbach, The Mercury News, 10 Feb. 2024
But the company was squarely under his bailiwick: OpenAI was to be part of the research wing of the startup incubator Y Combinator, where Altman was CEO.
—WIRED, 18 Nov. 2023
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“Bailiwick.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bailiwick. Accessed 28 Aug. 2024.
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