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Synonyms

department store

American  

noun

  1. a large retail store carrying a wide variety of merchandise and organized into various departments for sales and administrative purposes.

department store British  

noun

  1. a large shop divided into departments selling a great many kinds of goods

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

It depicts her in a black dress, ready to depart from her home in Eagle Bridge, N.Y., in November 1940, for Manhattan, where Gimbels department store was displaying her works.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 11, 2026

Get thee to a department store for some soft furnishings.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 3, 2026

Left to talk, Jacobs whirls through stories of past, present and future: anecdotes about his grandmother planning her lunch spot around which department store she’d spend the day at, and memories of Bob Fosse films.

From Salon • Mar. 27, 2026

“The department store pressure and the off-price success are not coincidental,” Siegel said.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 23, 2026

It was an ad for a department store.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel

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.