Meanings
plural dotcoms · alternative .com · alternative dot-com
- datedA company whose business is based around a website or primarily via the Internet.
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 20232 more examples
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 DigitextualityDotcom 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
present singular third person dotcoms · participle present dotcomming · participle past dotcommed · past dotcommed · alternative .com · alternative dot-com
- datedtransitiveTo convert to using or being based on e-commerce.
Then Yuppies dotcommed the Banks.
2010, J. S. Graustein, Rose Auslander, On a Narrow Windowsill: Fiction and Poetry Folded Onto Twitter, →ISBN3 more examples
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 2When will your company get dotcommed?
2001, Mass Media in India, →ISBN, page 185In 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
Origin
From dot + com, from the DNS suffix .com.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Rhymes with dotcom
Anagrams
Cite this entry
dotcom. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dotcom
“dotcom.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dotcom. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dotcom,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dotcom.
Source: dotcom on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.