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vendor

[ ven-der; especially contrastively ven-dawr ]
/ ˈvɛn dər; especially contrastively vɛnˈdɔr /
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See synonyms for: vendor / vendors on Thesaurus.com

noun
a person or agency that sells.
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Also vender.

Origin of vendor

1585–95; <Anglo-French vendo(u)r<Latin venditor.See vend, -or2
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

MORE ABOUT VENDOR

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.

Where does vendor come from?

The first records of the term vendor come from around 1585. It ultimately comes from the Latin venditor. It combines vend, meaning “to sell something as a business’s main form of income” and the suffix or, which creates nouns that denote a condition or property of a person.

When you hear the word vendor, you likely think of someone selling food or small items from a cart on a street corner or at an outdoor event, like a parade. When a business purchases products or services from another business, that second business is often referred to as a vendor. For example, when a business wants to create a food product involving tomatoes, the company that supplies the tomatoes will be the vendor, while the company that uses them is the buyer.

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What are some other forms related to vendor?

  • vender (alternative spelling)

What are some synonyms for vendor?

What are some words that share a root or word element with vendor

What are some words that often get used in discussing vendor?

How is vendor used in real life?

Vendor is a common word, often used to describe a person or company who sells something.

Try using vendor!

Which of the following is NOT a synonym for vendor?

A. salesperson
B. buyer
C. dealer
D. peddler

How to use vendor in a sentence

British Dictionary definitions for vendor

vendor

vender (ˈvɛndə)

/ (ˈvɛndɔː) /

noun
mainly law a person who sells something, esp real property
another name for vending machine
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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