warehouse

American  

[wair-hous, wair-houz, -hous] / ˈwɛərˌhaʊs, ˈwɛərˌhaʊz, -ˌhaʊs /

noun

• warehouses
  plural

1. a building, or a part of one, for the storage of goods, merchandise, etc.

2. British. a large retail store.

3. a building, or a part of one, in which wholesalers keep large stocks of merchandise, which they display and sell to retailers.

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verb (used with object)

• warehouses,
  present (3rd person singular)
• warehoused,
  past participle,  past
• warehousing
  present participle

1. to place, deposit, or store in a warehouse.

2. to set aside or accumulate, as for future use.

3. to place in a government or bonded warehouse, to be kept until duties are paid.

4. Informal. to confine (the mentally ill) to large institutions for long-term custodial care.

warehouse British  

noun

1. a place where goods are stored prior to their use, distribution, or sale

2. See bonded warehouse

3. a large commercial, esp wholesale, establishment

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verb

1. (tr) to store or place in a warehouse, esp a bonded warehouse

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• miniwarehouse
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• warehouses
  plural

Participles

• warehousing
  present
• warehoused
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• warehouse
  simple
• warehouses
  simple
• have warehoused
  perfect
• has warehoused
  perfect
• am warehousing
  progressive
• are warehousing
  progressive
• is warehousing
  progressive
• have been warehousing
  perfect progressive
• has been warehousing
  perfect progressive

Past

• warehoused
  simple
• had warehoused
  perfect
• was warehousing
  progressive
• were warehousing
  progressive
• had been warehousing
  perfect progressive

Future

• will warehouse
  simple
• will have warehoused
  perfect
• will be warehousing
  progressive
• will have been warehousing
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of warehouse

Middle English word dating back to 1300–50; see origin at ware ¹, house

Explanation

A warehouse is a place where a company stores things they are going to sell. If you order a book online, it is almost certainly shipped from a warehouse to your house. When a business has to store a lot of items, they often use a warehouse, or a large building, to keep them safe and organized until they're sold or made into a finished product. You can use the word warehouse as a verb, too: "I need to warehouse all these roller skates, because they're not selling as fast as I'd hoped." Warehouse combines ware, or "manufactured goods," and house. In other words, it's a place to house your wares.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

warehouse warehouses warehoused warehousing

“Barrels in a warehouse are physical forecasts that were made years ago,” says Koryn Ternes, a consulting director at IWSR, an industry data provider.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026

Bluecore Energy’s warehouse spans 10,000 square feet at Berth 48.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026

Meanwhile, in the central Russian region of Tambov, a warehouse belonging to e-commerce giant Wildberries burned.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 27, 2026

Feeling dizzy and unwell after cycling to work in Japan's punishing summer heat, warehouse worker Isao Tabuchi headed for his company's newest acquisition: a refrigerator for humans.

From Barron's ● Aug. 25, 2026

"Sorry, but I keep them in a warehouse in Queens."

From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda

They lived in makeshift apartments and partied in retrofitted warehouses.

From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026

Bernstein analysts point out that Rémy’s free cash flow conversion was as low as 5% in years when the company was heavily stocking its warehouses.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 30, 2026

He immediately went to work clearing warehouses of unsold inventory and trimming down Apple’s list of suppliers.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 29, 2026

He also described a previous proposal of increasing business rates on large warehouses to help reduce them for pubs and clubs as "delusional".

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

Others established factories and warehouses to make and store supplies for the Union army.

From "Lincoln's Last Days: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever" by Bill O'Reilly

Fenley said she and other Democrats in town were concerned about having people "warehoused in a place that was not built for human habitation".

From BBC ● Apr. 4, 2026

Faced with what he thought were his only choices—being warehoused, or dying—he applied for MAID.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 30, 2025

Surplus items were warehoused, donated, or thrown away.

From Slate ● Dec. 18, 2024

She also sought to ease the transition of patients from being warehoused in state mental hospitals to living independently.

From New York Times ● Jan. 4, 2024

The lower passions and vices were regularly ticked off in the books, warehoused in the cells, carted away as per accompanying invoice, and left little mark upon it.

From Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

Too often across America, “schools are really about warehousing of children,” she says.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026

Transportation and warehousing also increased for a second straight month, largely on strength in natural gas and crude oil pipelines.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 31, 2026

Jobs in utilities, oil and gas extraction as well as transportation and warehousing also saw strong increases in hours worked.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 10, 2026

Richardson is betting on music at a time when other cities — including Los Angeles — are doubling down on sports, warehousing or data centers.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2026

When our elders presented school to us, they did not present it as a place of high learning but as a means of escape from death and penal warehousing.

From "Between the World and Me" by Ta-Nehisi Coates