grocer

American  

[groh-ser] / ˈgroʊ sər /

noun

1. the owner or operator of a store that sells general food supplies and certain nonedible articles of household use, as soaps and paper products.

---

grocer British  

/ ˈɡrəʊsə /

noun

1. a dealer in foodstuffs and other household supplies

---

Etymology

Origin of grocer

1325–75; Middle English < Old French gross ( i ) er wholesale merchant. See gross, -er ²

Explanation

Someone who sells food in a supermarket or convenience store is a grocer. If you can't find your favorite kind of cereal on the shelf, you should ask the grocer to help you. The owner or manager of a grocery store is a grocer. This word once meant "one who buys and sells in gross," or in large quantities, from the Anglo-French grosser. By the 16th century, grocer also meant "merchant selling food," but earlier that person would've been called a spicer. Your neighborhood grocer might sell fresh produce from local farmers, unlike that big box supermarket out by the mall.

Example Sentences

GROCER, literally one who sells by the gross, a wholesale dealer; the word is derived through the O. Fr. form, grossia, from the Med.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 5 "Greek Law" to "Ground-Squirrel" by Various