warehouse

American  

[wair-haus, wair-hauz, -haus] / ˈwɛərˌhaʊs, ˈwɛərˌhaʊz, -ˌhaʊs /

noun

• warehouses
  plural

1. a building, or a part of one, for the storage of goods, merchandise, etc.

2. British. a large retail store.

3. a building, or a part of one, in which wholesalers keep large stocks of merchandise, which they display and sell to retailers.

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verb (used with object)

• warehouses,
  present (3rd person singular)
• warehoused,
  past participle,  past
• warehousing
  present participle

1. to place, deposit, or store in a warehouse.

2. to set aside or accumulate, as for future use.

3. to place in a government or bonded warehouse, to be kept until duties are paid.

4. Informal. to confine (the mentally ill) to large institutions for long-term custodial care.

warehouse British  

noun

1. a place where goods are stored prior to their use, distribution, or sale

2. See bonded warehouse

3. a large commercial, esp wholesale, establishment

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verb

1. (tr) to store or place in a warehouse, esp a bonded warehouse

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• miniwarehouse
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• warehouses
  plural

Participles

• warehousing
  present
• warehoused
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• warehouse
  simple
• warehouses
  simple
• have warehoused
  perfect
• has warehoused
  perfect
• am warehousing
  progressive
• are warehousing
  progressive
• is warehousing
  progressive
• have been warehousing
  perfect progressive
• has been warehousing
  perfect progressive

Past

• warehoused
  simple
• had warehoused
  perfect
• was warehousing
  progressive
• were warehousing
  progressive
• had been warehousing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will warehouse
  simple
• will have warehoused
  perfect
• will be warehousing
  progressive
• will have been warehousing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of warehouse

Middle English word dating back to 1300–50; see origin at ware ¹, house

Explanation

A warehouse is a place where a company stores things they are going to sell. If you order a book online, it is almost certainly shipped from a warehouse to your house. When a business has to store a lot of items, they often use a warehouse, or a large building, to keep them safe and organized until they're sold or made into a finished product. You can use the word warehouse as a verb, too: "I need to warehouse all these roller skates, because they're not selling as fast as I'd hoped." Warehouse combines ware, or "manufactured goods," and house. In other words, it's a place to house your wares.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

warehouse warehouses warehoused warehousing

Those properties reportedly include Parton’s Nashville home, museum, warehouse, and a downtown residence.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 12, 2026

Inside a warehouse on England's south coast, boxes are stacked with pristine Team GB clothing from Paris 2024 and Milan Cortina 2026.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

Walmart started trying versions of the systems more than a decade ago, often in a 1.6 million-square-foot warehouse in Brooksville, Fla., that processes nonperishable goods.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

Earlier this year, Walmart was behind on the automation targets it laid out in 2023, when investors and journalists toured its Brooksville automation test warehouse.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

When he reached the neighborhood where he lived he passed through a certain narrow street that was flanked on one side by a smoke-blackened brick warehouse.

From "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers

Kit can remain in warehouses or athletes' garages without entering a waste stream where it can be counted.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

But it turned into one of the many challenges bedeviling the company’s decadelong, multibillion-dollar quest to automate its warehouses.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

In neighbourhoods such as Ancoats and New Islington, red-brick warehouses still stand as reminders of Manchester's industrial past.

From Barron's ● Oct. 9, 2026

At the time, executives said by the end of January of this year, about 65% of stores would be serviced by warehouses using automation and 55% of e-commerce warehouse volume would be automated.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026

We was back to dirt road and it was all old wood- frame warehouses.

From "Life Is So Good" by George Dawson

“Perishables can’t be warehoused to wait out a price spike, they require diesel-dependent refrigerated trucking constantly,” Lempert said.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 10, 2026

Faced with what he thought were his only choices—being warehoused, or dying—he applied for MAID.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2025

"You're seeing people basically get warehoused because the courts can't deal with the demand."

From BBC ● Feb. 17, 2025

Surplus items were warehoused, donated, or thrown away.

From Slate ● Dec. 18, 2024

Having finished my business and seen these precious things warehoused, I handed over the checking of a list of them to another and turned to seek my horse.

From The Virgin of the Sun by Henry Rider Haggard

Key details: More jobs were available in transportation, warehousing, package delivery and even the federal government.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026

Transportation and warehousing also increased for a second straight month, largely on strength in natural gas and crude oil pipelines.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

Most of Apotex’s production is in Canada, with additional facilities in Mexico and India, and only two U.S. sites focused on warehousing, distribution and its U.S. affiliate headquarters.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026

Most recently, Amazon’s announcement in May of Amazon Supply Chain Service, a business that will provide distribution, warehousing, and last-mile delivery services, sent many logistics stocks south.

From Barron's ● Jun. 10, 2026

Milo’s mess halls would not even help him store the cotton, and his warehousing costs skyrocketed and contributed to the devastating drain upon his cash reserves.

From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller