shop
Americannoun
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a retail store, especially a small one.
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a small store or department in a large store selling a specific or select type of goods.
the ski shop at Smith's.
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the workshop of a craftsperson or artisan.
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the workshop of a person who works in a manual trade; place for doing specific, skilled manual work.
a carpenter's shop.
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any factory, office, or business.
Our ad agency is a well-run shop.
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Education.
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a course of instruction in a trade, as carpentry, printing, etc., consisting chiefly of training in the use of its tools and materials.
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a classroom in which such a course is given.
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one's trade, profession, or business as a subject of conversation or preoccupation.
verb (used without object)
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to visit shops and stores for purchasing or examining goods.
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to seek or examine goods, property, etc., offered for sale.
Retail merchants often stock their stores by shopping in New York.
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to seek a bargain, investment, service, etc. (usually followed byfor ).
I'm shopping for a safe investment that pays good interest.
verb (used with object)
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to seek or examine goods, property, etc., offered for sale in or by.
She's shopping the shoe stores this afternoon.
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Chiefly British Informal.
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to put into prison; jail.
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to behave treacherously toward; inform on; betray.
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Slang. to try to sell (merchandise or a project) in an attempt to obtain an order or contract.
interjection
idioms
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set up shop, to go into business; begin business operations.
to set up shop as a taxidermist.
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talk shop, to discuss one's trade, profession, or business.
After dinner we all sat around the table and talked shop.
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shut up shop,
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to close a business temporarily, as at the end of the day.
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to suspend business operations permanently.
They couldn't make a go of it and had to shut up shop.
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noun
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a place, esp a small building, for the retail sale of goods and services
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an act or instance of shopping, esp household shopping
the weekly shop
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a place for the performance of a specified type of work; workshop
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informal
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in disarray
his papers were all over the shop
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in every direction
I've searched for it all over the shop
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to close business at the end of the day or permanently
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to become defensive or inactive
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to speak about one's work, esp when meeting socially, sometimes with the effect of excluding those not similarly employed
verb
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to visit a shop or shops in search of (goods) with the intention of buying them
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slang (tr) to inform on or betray, esp to the police
Other Word Forms
- intershop adjective
Etymology
Origin of shop
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English shoppe (noun), Old English sceoppa “booth”; akin to scypen “stall” ( shippon ), German Schopf “lean-to,” Schuppen “shed”
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.
Her young daughter loves being in the shop too, watching her mom transform cars from junk into treasure.
From Los Angeles Times
It’s an open-air shopping and dining center that has a large lawn where the kids can play and the grownups can grab a drink from Lil’ Simmzy’s.
From Los Angeles Times
“I can go shopping in my closet and grab something and pop it in, instead of spending an hour scrolling through Netflix to find something and then just turning on the same TV show.”
From Los Angeles Times
Debbie said she needed to visit three or four different shops to get the weekly supplies which "took all morning" and the cost was much higher than regular products.
From BBC
But the shop has been hit by Russia's economic downturn and tax hikes.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.