department store
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of department store
An Americanism dating back to 1885–90
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
More concrete buildings came tumbling down during the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake of 1994, causing the partial collapse of a Kaiser Permanente building and a Bullock’s department store.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 25, 2026
Originally a huge music department store which sold records and instruments, the building had been slated for demolition after the store filed for insolvency in 1995.
From BBC • Jun. 10, 2026
Buffett himself has often highlighted mistakes in his retail investments, calling a 1966 deal to buy a Baltimore department store one of his biggest mistakes.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 4, 2026
He claims to have found a copy of “Lunch on a Beam,” also known as “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper,” at an Austrian department store in 1989 and recognized it from an old family album.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 22, 2026
His father gave them all envelopes of varying amounts of money, never thinking that just once they might like something he actually went into a department store and selected.
From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
