domestic, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

domestic n.

1. an argument or fight between a couple who live together.

1901		W.A. Sun. Times (Perth) 18 Aug. 1/1: A terrible domestic was narrowly averted last week at a Cannington ‘picnic’ hotel. The ‘hot water’ supplied by the proprietor was nothing to the hot water the gay Lothario got into.
1962		T.K. Martin Z Cars (1963) 38: If it’s dry, it’s the drunks and domestics.
1977		G.F. Newman Villain’s Tale 54: He loved his wife very much, despite their occasional bits of domestic.
1980		J. McClure Spike Island (1981) 116: It was always domestics: he’d strangled her, she’d ’it ’im with the fryin’-pan or somethin’.
1995		M. Dibdin Dark Spectre (1996) 43: Wayne and Dawn have been duking it out again, which is why the call went out as a domestic.
2001		I. Rankin Falls 262: It turned out to be a ‘domestic’, that handy euphemism when victims were killed by their loved ones.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 33: ‘Did you hear they had a murder last night?’ [...] ‘A domestic?’ [...] ‘No [...] the victim wasn’t in any kind of relationship’.
2019		C. Hammer Silver [ebook] ‘Fights and brawls and domestics, sure [...] but murder? Sheesh’.

2. any problems accruing to one’s home (rather than criminal / professional) life.

1972

P. Fordham Inside the Und. 35: My money was being cut off and there was domestic.

domestic engineer (n.)

(Aus.) a housewife.

1904		Traralgon Record (Vic.) 22 jan. 2/2: The Thomas S. Clarkson School of Technology confers a degree of ‘bachelor of science in domestic engineering’ upon young women who complete the course in household sciences. [...] No grim bacilli could get by / If you were watching near. / Priscilla, oh, say you’ll be my / Domestic Engineer .
1964		Aus. Women’s Wkly 29 Jan. 26/3: I can never understand those women who bridle at being called housewives. For myself I much prefer the word to that of homemaker, which to me sounds smug and far too syrupy. If we must modernise it, I think the word most fitting is ‘Domestic Engineer’ - because if we aren’t engineering the washing-machine, we’re engineering our husbands into doing the washing-up .
1972		Aus. Women’s Wkly 26 Apr. 33/3: My version of ‘housewife,’ or ‘home duties,’ when filling in one’s occupation on various forms: As the female partner of my household I always give my occupation as ‘domestic engineer,’ which duties I carry out faithfully, engineering all domestic problems.
1997		Redheads (Wagga Wagga) 5 July 🌐 I am currently employed as a Domestic Engineer .