regrate
1 Americanverb (used with object)
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to buy up (grain, provisions, etc.) in order to sell again at a profit in or near the same market.
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to sell again (commodities so bought); retail.
verb (used with object)
verb
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to buy up (commodities) in advance so as to raise their price for profitable resale
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to resell (commodities so purchased); retail
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building trades to redress the surface of (hewn stonework)
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of regrate1
1400–50; late Middle English regraten < Old French regrater, perhaps equivalent to re- re- + grater to scrape ( see grate 2)
Origin of regrate2
1720–30; < French regratter, equivalent to re- re- + gratter to grate 2
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.
See Examples For:
Such corners, if completely successful, would have the public at their mercy; luckily they rarely are; the difficulty, in fact, begins when you begin to regrate.
From Popular Law-making by Frederic Jesup Stimson
Fail me patience and stay for engrossing care * And sorrows my suffering soul regrate.
From The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night — Volume 08 by Sir Richard Francis Burton
To regrate was to buy up in the market and sell again in the same market at an advanced price.
From The History of London by Sir Walter Besant
The certantie understand, the said Maister George tooke his leave of Kyle, and that with the regrate of many.
From The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) by David Laing
And in the xvj day of March the kyng ordeyned that no man schulde gon ought of the citee of London be water no be londe to regrate ony Hoc Ao concessit civib’ Londo’.vitaile.
From A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 Written in the Fifteenth Century, and for the First Time Printed from MSS. in the British Museum by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas
Milk universally forestalled and regrated in American markets.
From Popular Law-making by Frederic Jesup Stimson
We regrated that the prettiest machine of all was broken; wheir was to be sein wtin a little bounds above 300 spouts sending furth water and that in sundry formes.
From Publications of the Scottish History Society, Volume 36 Journals of Sir John Lauder Lord Fountainhall with His Observations on Public Affairs and Other Memoranda 1665-1676 by Lord John Lauder Fountainhall
Fish, destruction of to enhance price made criminal in 1357; universally regrated in American markets; may not be carried out of England.
From Popular Law-making by Frederic Jesup Stimson
Rusby was heavily fined, but, on appeal, the court was equally divided as to whether engrossing, forestalling and regrating were still offences at common law.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 6 "English Language" to "Epsom Salts" by Various
He was so much shocked by the distress inseparable from scarcity that he made statutes against forestalling and regrating, and so turned the scarcity into a famine.
From Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches — Volume 4 by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron Macaulay
They had, moreover, taken bribes for concealment of offences of forestalling and regrating.
From London and the Kingdom - Volume I by Reginald R. (Reginald Robinson) Sharpe
In the towns there was an outcry against corn merchants, who were guilty of forestalling and regrating.
From William Pitt and the Great War by John Holland Rose
"Engrossing" is really the result of a successful forestalling, with or without regrating; that is to say, it is a complete "corner of the market"; from it our word "grocer" is derived.
From Popular Law-making by Frederic Jesup Stimson
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