set up shop

1. Open a business, start a profession, as in Now that you've got your degree, where do you plan to set up shop? This idiom was first recorded about 1570.

Example Sentences

It could move back to the Financial District, near where J. Pierpont Morgan set up shop at 23 Wall Street in 1873, or decamp to the flashy new Hudson Yards, where big firms like KKR have moved in recent years.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

In 2014, Mr. Fatsis walked for the first time into what resembled a “drab elementary school” in Springfield, Mass. This was the headquarters of Merriam-Webster, which traces its origins to 1831, when the brothers George and Charles Merriam set up shop as printers of textbooks and religious texts, encouraging employees to adopt a “habitual suavity of manners,” which was presumably a challenge in the rough-and-tumble world of Bibles and hymnals.

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More set up shop in recent years to refine lithium for electric-vehicle batteries and crank out plastic pellets.

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Asian e-commerce giant Shein's decision to set up shop in a historic Parisian department store has ruffled feathers in the fashion capital.

Read more on Barron's

The city has long been a hub for the toy industry as companies like to set up shop in the shadow of Mattel, the maker of Barbie.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• commence 
• convene 
• inaugurate 
• initiate 
• launch 
• meet 
• start