grocery

[groh-suh-ree, grohs-ree]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR grocery ON THESAURUS.COM

noun, plural gro·cer·ies.

Also called grocery store. a grocer's store.

Usually groceries; especially British. grocery. food and other commodities sold by a grocer.

the business of a grocer.

Southwestern U.S. (formerly)

a saloon or bar.
a liquor store.

Origin of grocery

1400–50; late Middle English grocerie < Old French grosserie. See gross, -ery

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for grocery

supermarket, greengrocery, bodega, store, delicatessen, market

Examples from the Web for grocery

Contemporary Examples of grocery

The police learned that Kemp worked in a grocery on Decatur Avenue.
Shot Down During the NYPD Slowdown
Michael Daly
January 7, 2015
Here they are semi-touching at a grocery store; she likes kombucha.
All Your Internet Boyfriends Are Taken: Gosling, Cumberbatch, and now Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Melissa Leon
January 3, 2015
He was born in an apartment above the grocery store owned by his immigrant parents in South Jamaica, Queens.
Mario Cuomo, a Frustrating Hero to Democrats, Is Dead at 82
Eleanor Clift
January 2, 2015
The people you work with, or see at your grocery store, or your church?
Obama Is Right on Race. The Media Is Wrong.
Keli Goff
December 29, 2014
While grocery shopping a guy I had noticed following me earlier, walked by me really fast and said, ‘You look shorter in person.’
Porn Stars on the Year in Porn: Drone Erotica, Belle Knox, and Wild Sex
Aurora Snow
December 27, 2014

Historical Examples of grocery

He was determined to start a grocery, and start a grocery he would and did.
Biography of a Slave
Charles Thompson
So the grocery was essentially a village club, and not a rural club.
In the Midst of Alarms
Robert Barr
There were also plenty of spoons, for everything was to be had at the grocery.
In the Midst of Alarms
Robert Barr
He looked more like a clerk from a grocery store than the commander of an army.
In the Midst of Alarms
Robert Barr
Mrs. Everat—her ninth child in eight years—in the grocery line.
Night and Morning, Complete
Edward Bulwer-Lytton

British Dictionary definitions for grocery

grocery

noun plural -ceries

the business or premises of a grocer

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

Word Origin and History for grocery

mid-15c., "goods sold by a grocer" (now groceries, 1630s), earlier the name of the Grocer's Hall in London (early 15c.), from Old French grosserie, from grossier (see grocer). Meaning "a grocer's shop" is 1828, American English.

GROCERY. A grocer's shop. This word is not in the English dictionaries except in the sense of grocer's ware, such as tea, sugar, spice, etc.; in which sense we also use it in the plural. [Bartlett, "Dictionary of Americanisms," 1859]

Self-service groceries were a novelty in 1913 when a Montana, U.S., firm copyrighted the word groceteria (with the ending from cafeteria used in an un-etymological sense) to name them. The term existed through the 1920s.