grocery
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From French grosserie (“wholesale”).[1] Compare gross.
Pronunciation[edit]
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈɡɹəʊs(ə)ɹi/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈɡɹoʊs(ə)ɹi/, /ˈɡɹoʊʃ(ə)ɹi/
Audio (file)
Noun[edit]
grocery (plural groceries)
- (usually groceries) retail foodstuffs and other household supplies.
- 1776: Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
- Where ten thousand pounds can be employed in the grocery trade, the wages of the grocer's labour make but a very trifling addition...
- 1850, Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets, The present time
- Did not cotton spin itself, beef grow, and groceries and spiceries come in from the East and the West, quite comfortably by the side of shams?
- 1776: Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
- A shop or store that sells groceries; a grocery store.
- 1854: Henry David Thoreau, Walden
- I observed that the vitals of the village were the grocery, the bar-room, the post-office, and the bank...
- 1854: Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Usage notes[edit]
When referring to goods, the singular form is primarily used attributively, as in a grocery bill, a grocery list, etc. The plural form, groceries, is much more frequently used to refer to actual goods, especially in the US.
Synonyms[edit]
- (retail foodstuffs and household supplies): commodities, general goods, groceries, packaged goods
- (store that sells groceries): general store, grocer's, grocery store, market, supermarket
Related terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
retail foodstuffs and other household supplies — see groceries
shop or store that sells groceries
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Verb[edit]
grocery (third-person singular simple present groceries, present participle grocerying, simple past and past participle groceried)
- (intransitive) To go grocery shopping.
- 1913, George Lee Burton, Tackling Matrimony: To the Men and Girls who Love Each Other More than Ease and Show and Sham[1]:
- We shopped and groceried on a cash basis, determined on that from the start.
- 1967, The New Yorker[2], volume 43, number 5, page 210:
- The thought of grocerying so casually at Seessel's evokes a giggle from Shirley
- 2012, Hazel Rae Minnick, Living in My Shadow[3], page 93:
- I was dependent upon others for grocerying and getting to doctor appointments.
- [2016 July 19, “The word of the week: grocerying”, in StarTribune.com[4]:
- Sample usage: "If you're going grocerying, pick up some GMO — you know, Goat's Milk, Organic. But it has to be non-GMO GMO."]
- (transitive) To furnish with groceries.
- 1939, John Willy, Hotel Monthly[5], volume 47, number 550, page 59:
- Fifty-eight years of grocerying hotels, restaurants and institutions that feed many people
- 1998, Ron Rau, “Doing It for Money”, in David Seybold, editor, Seasons of the Angler: A Fisherman's Anthology, page 95:
- What freedom to be iced, fueled, and groceried for two weeks and running toward a reef you truly love
References[edit]
- ^ “grocery” in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
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