bailiwick

From bailie (“bailiff”) and wick (“dwelling”), from Old English wīc.

• enPR: bā'lĭ-wĭk, IPA^(key): /ˈbeɪ.lɪ.wɪk/

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bailiwick (plural bailiwicks)

1. The district within which a bailie or bailiff has jurisdiction.

   The Bailiwick of Jersey.

2. A person's concern or sphere of operations, their area of skill or authority.
   • 1961, Eleanor Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt:

     I established the fairly well-understood pattern that affairs of state were not in my bailiwick.

   • 2020 September 28, Alex McLevy, “Marilynne Robinson finds transcendence in the stunning, soul-searching Jack”, in The A.V. Club‎:

     Jack is full of these insights, thoughtful turns of phrase from a character whose perpetual struggle between wastrel and righteous is all too familiar a bailiwick for the universal insecurities of the human condition.

• (area or subject of authority or involvement): domain, department, jurisdiction, sphere, province, territory, turf, pale, wheelhouse.

• bailie
• bailiff

• “bailiwick”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.