vendor
Americannoun
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law a person who sells something, esp real property
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another name for vending machine
Usage
What is a vendor? A vendor is a person or business that sells something, as in The school lunch really improved after it changed food vendors. A vendor is also a machine that dispenses items after you put money into it. It’s more often called a vending machine. Example: The vendor told me that the box has a scratch, so she’s selling it cheap.
Etymology
Origin of vendor
1585–95; < Anglo-French vendo ( u ) r < Latin venditor. See vend, -or 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.
A vendor at Colombo's Pettah night market, Wasantha Jayalath, 55, said he voted for Dissanayake in 2024 hoping for better times, but felt the situation was getting worse.
From Barron's • Apr. 4, 2026
“Microsoft is really the only vendor that has a massive application business and is a massive hyperscaler,” Moerdler told MarketWatch.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 30, 2026
One vendor sold t-shirts with captions proclaiming “LEGEND” alternatively accompanying pictures of Charlie Kirk or, for some reason, Andy Griffith and Don Knotts together in costume from The Andy Griffith Show.
From Slate • Mar. 30, 2026
At the weekly gathering, which features a food vendor, cocktails, tattoo artists and DJs, you can “competitively play chess, learn the game, meet new friends or mingle as a single person,” Thompson shares.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 23, 2026
He made up conspiracy theories by the dozens: a banana vendor who sold fruit outside our house was secretly recording Jagu’s behavior.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
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.
