shop
Americannoun
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shops
plural
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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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shops,
present (3rd person singular)
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shopped,
past participle, past
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shopping
present participle
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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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shops,
present (3rd person singular)
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shopped,
past participle, past
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shopping
present participle
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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
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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shopsimple
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shopssimple
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have shoppedperfect
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has shoppedperfect
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am shoppingprogressive
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are shoppingprogressive
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is shoppingprogressive
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have been shoppingperfect progressive
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has been shoppingperfect progressive
Past
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shoppedsimple
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had shoppedperfect
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was shoppingprogressive
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were shoppingprogressive
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had been shoppingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of shop
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English shoppe (noun), Old English sceoppa “booth”; akin to scypen “stall” ( see 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.
See Examples For:
His home was destroyed and his barber shop was partially damaged.
From BBC ● Oct. 7, 2026
Its rival Lawson reportedly said it plans to open its first shop in India in 2027 and to expand its business there to around 100 shops by 2030.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
Martín Ramírez, who owns a car shop next to the warehouse, said when he initially arrived for work Tuesday morning, the warehouse was filled with busy workers as usual, cleaning and operating heavy machinery.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2026
I make a small pot at home and drink about a cup and a half, then I’ll have one at the shop.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026
I looked through the glass in the door to the shop, but Betsie, behind her little cashier’s desk, was talking to a customer.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Thousands of Russian workers have spent years building and installing equipment, with a residential complex, shops and restaurants springing up around them.
From Barron's ● Oct. 7, 2026
Chains like Snog had 10 stores in the capital at its peak and other brands like AngelBerry had shops in Bristol and Brighton.
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
When his first collection -- Spring-Summer 2026 -- arrived in stores in March this year, videos of buyers streaming into Chanel shops went viral on social media.
From Barron's ● Oct. 4, 2026
Stephen, who’d just earned his degree in computer science, built a digital inventory tracking system for Mavis shops, run on green-screen computers and floppy disks.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2026
Of course, we pass a lot of interesting shops along the way, and Hannah keeps saying stuff like, “Oh, look. A Gucci bag. You’re going to need one of those if you go to Chumley.”
From "Shine!" by J.J. and Chris Grabenstein
Collins shopped with his grandmother Kathy Red Elk for a suit Walters could wear to court.
From Slate ● Sep. 17, 2026
Shein started selling its wares in the U.S. around 2012 and shot to popularity during the pandemic when more people shopped online.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 31, 2026
And while Warner Bros. quietly allowed the movie to be shopped to different studios, no one met their price.
From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026
According to Mintel research from July 2025, 32% of women aged 16-34 who buy clothes online said they had shopped at Shein during the previous year.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
Mostly our people shopped there, although a few whites from a nearby neighborhood came there, too.
From "Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High" by Melba Pattillo Beals
His wife and two kids used to visit the Bay Area twice a year for shopping, but that’s down to just one trip in the last three years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
The three locations closed in Southern California were at the Westfield mall in Century City; The Point, an outdoor shopping center in El Segundo; and at the Westfield UTC mall in San Diego.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 7, 2026
The main shopping hub in Snowmass is about 15 minutes from Aspen’s airport, and the hope is that travelers will drive instead of fly.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026
"I'm super-obsessed with ube," university student Kym Trivino told AFP as she sipped an ube-matcha concoction at one of Manila's largest shopping malls.
From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026
I sent her home and I did the shopping, and all the shopping after that, though there was very little money to do it with.
From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron
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.
