Dictionary

dotcom en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /dɒtˈkɒm/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˌdɑtˈkɑm/ (General-American)
• (Mid-Atlantic, US) audio
• (Southern-England) audio

Etymology

From dot + com, from the DNS suffix .com.

Meanings

1. (dated) A company whose business is based around a website or primarily via the Internet.
   • Even mainstream, primetime narratives in the domestic sphere, for instance, now provide unremarkable reflections on the now naive and overly optimistic promises of cybertech, the high-techs, and dotcoms. 2003, Anna Everett, John T. Caldwell, New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality:
   • In an echo of the valuation methods used before the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2001, its shares are priced not in relation to its profits or even its revenue but to its extraordinary growth. 2013 August 3, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847, archived from the original on 11 Mar 2023:
   • Dotcom mania was slow in coming to higher education, but now it has the venerable industry firmly in its grip. Since the launch early last year of Udacity and Coursera, two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. 2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

Forms

Deriveds

dot bomb

dotcom en · VERB

Pronunciation

• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈdɑtˌkɑm/ (General-American)
• /ˈdɒtkɒm/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

From dot + com, from the DNS suffix .com.

Meanings

1. (dated, transitive) To convert to using or being based on e-commerce.
   • The fear of being "dotcommed” was a powerful catalyst creating a reactionary environment. 2001, Rick G. Sherland, E-business & Internet infrastructure software: United States, page 2:
   • Then Yuppies dotcommed the Banks. 2010, J. S. Graustein, Rose Auslander, On a Narrow Windowsill: Fiction and Poetry Folded Onto Twitter, →ISBN:
   • In the tech world, all the talk of disruption has revived memories of the 1990s, when start-ups riding the first wave of the internet were seen as an imminent threat to many established businesses and the fear of being “dotcommed” was pervasive. 2026 April 4, Richard Waters, “AI disruption: who will get hit?”, in FT Weekend (Big Read section), London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 5:
   • When will your company get dotcommed? 2001, Mass Media in India, →ISBN, page 185:

Forms