department store

noun

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

department store

noun

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of department store¹

An Americanism dating back to 1885–90

Example Sentences

If you know the original retailer — say a department store or specialty shop — make note of that, too.

From Washington Post

It steadily expanded, and by 1950, the company website boasts, it had grown into the largest department store group in the UK.

From Quartz

That so many street-level spaces were once home to large commercial tenants like department stores and packaging facilities, each with a cavernous square footage, only enhances their appeal.

From Digiday

CoStar estimated that one-third of the store closings were by department stores, clothing chains, or other mall-oriented companies, which represent only about 8% of total retail revenue.

From Fortune

They lined the shelves of department stores and gas stations, and teachers struggled to manage the sudden influx of twirling plastic devices in classrooms.

From Popular-Science

Target was established in 1962 by the Dayton brothers as a discount offshoot of their eponymous Twin Cities department store.

From The Daily Beast

In 1974, 75 members of the group descended on a Copenhagen department store.

From The Daily Beast

The chants continued in front of the high-end department store.

From The Daily Beast

A department store piano melody plays in the background while he admires everything he can see.

From The Daily Beast

She loses them briefly in a department store, but finds them a few moments later, and the incident is never mentioned again.

From The Daily Beast

Ede was the type after which some department store advertising-department diplomat had coined the term "stylish stout."

From Project Gutenberg

I don't know anything; I can only presume that he doesn't intend to open a department store in the Everglades.

From Project Gutenberg

She had not conducted them to a department store, but to the small shop of a decidedly exclusive children's outfitter.

From Project Gutenberg

And she gave me a note to a department store which will probably take me on.

From Project Gutenberg

This Chinaman had established in Singapore the kind of store which we in America think we invented—the department store.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• chain store
• discount store
• shop
• store