grocery

Pluralgroceries

Formsgroceries, grocerying, groceried

1. 1
   nouncountablebefore a noun

   Food and other household supplies purchased at retail for home use.

   He unloaded the groceries onto the kitchen counter before answering the phone.

   Their monthly grocery budget barely covers fresh produce anymore.

   Similarprovisions, food, shopping

   Note

   The word is built from the trade's name: Middle English grocerye, grocer plus -y, and related to gross. Adam Smith's "grocery trade" in The Wealth of Nations (1776) shows the attributive use that is still everyday: grocery bill, grocery list, grocery budget. When speakers mean the goods themselves rather than a modifier, they usually reach for the plural, groceries.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A shop or store that sells food and other household supplies.

   The neighborhood grocery has been run by the same family for three decades.

   Independent groceries struggle to compete with the big supermarket chains.

   Similarsupermarket, market

   Note

   Here the word names the place rather than the goods it sells. Thoreau, in Walden (1854), counts the grocery among the village's vitals, beside the bar-room, the post office and the bank. Grocery store and grocer's spell the meaning out more fully. A greengrocer's is a narrower shop that deals in fruit and vegetables.

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To go shopping for food and other household supplies.

   They grocery together on Saturday mornings before the stores get crowded.

   After work she groceried at the new market downtown.

   Similarshop

   Note

   A verb made straight from the noun and used the way shopping is: people go grocerying, or simply grocery. The -y stays in every form, so the verb is spelled groceries, grocerying and groceried. It takes no object, which separates it from the supplying verb. The New Yorker printed it in 1967, and in 2016 the StarTribune still singled it out as its word of the week.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To furnish or supply someone or something with food and other household provisions.

   The hosts grocery the cabin before each guest's arrival.

   A local charity groceried dozens of families after the flood.

   Similarstock, provision, supply

   Note

   Here someone or something is supplied rather than doing the shopping, so the verb needs an object. Hotel Monthly in 1939 speaks of grocerying hotels, restaurants and institutions. The passive participle sits naturally in lists of provisioning, as in Ron Rau's "iced, fueled, and groceried for two weeks". Its company is stocked and provisioned rather than shopping.

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