retail

SayREE-tayl/ˈɹiˌteɪl/UK/ˈɹiːteɪl/

8 meanings of retail

1
shop-frontadjective
Relating to selling goods or services directly to individual consumers; figuratively, involving direct engagement with individuals or small groups.
The company expanded its retail operations into three new cities.
Candidates often adopt a retail approach, meeting voters one by one.
UsageUsually before a noun: retail prices, a retail chain. In retail politics, candidates win voters one by one.
Oppositewholesale
Note
The figurative use is the lively one: retail describes dealing with people directly, a few at a time, rather than reaching them all at once. Retail politics, the handshaking, smiling work of meeting voters in person, is the settled phrase, and Jonathan Freedland used it of Ron DeSantis in 2024.
2
noununcountable
The sale of goods directly to consumers, including the storefronts, mail-order, and websites involved, along with the branding and advertising that support them.
After years in banking, she moved into retail and opened a clothing shop.
The shift toward online shopping has reshaped how retail reaches its customers.
UsageAs a job field it follows in or into: she works in retail, he moved into retail.
Similarsales, merchandising
Oppositewholesale
3
verbtransitive
To sell in small quantities directly to customers, rather than in bulk to other businesses.
Small farms increasingly retail their produce straight to households.
The workshop retails its pottery at weekend craft markets.
Similarsell, vend, market
Oppositewholesale
4
full pricenouncolloquialuncountable
The full suggested price set for a good or service, the amount that any sale, discount, or other deal is measured against.
He bragged about never paying retail for anything in his closet.
The console sells for well under retail during the holiday rush.
UsageUsually after a verb of paying or a preposition: pay retail, under retail, at retail.
Note
A clipped form of retail price, and a conversational one. It turns up most often in talk of paying less: never pay retail, well below retail. Said that way it often carries a note of thrift or a small boast, the full price named mainly as the thing avoided.
5
adverb
Directly to consumers, in small quantities, or at the full marked price.
If you buy the parts retail, the repair will cost almost twice as much as the shop's quote.
The company sells retail through its own outlets and wholesale to distributors.
UsageUsually after buy or sell: buy retail, sell retail; often set against wholesale.
Oppositewholesale
6
noununcountable
In finance, the selling of securities and other financial products to private individuals rather than to large institutions.
After ten years selling to pension funds, she moved into retail, marketing bonds to private clients.
Retail investors snapped up a large part of the offering within hours.
Oppositewholesale
Note
Finance sets retail against institutional: individuals buying through brokers or apps on one side, pension funds, insurers and banks trading in size on the other. In practice the noun mostly turns up in front of another noun, as in retail investors, retail brokers or the retail portion of a share sale. It carries over the logic of the shop-counter meaning: smaller amounts, sold to ordinary buyers.

Less common meanings

7
Sayri-TAYL/ɹɪˈteɪl/
spread rumorsverbtransitive
To repeat or circulate news or rumors by passing them along to others.
Columnists eagerly retail every rumor that drifts out of the palace.
He retailed the story so often that the details changed with each telling.
UsageThe story is the object and the listener follows to: retailed the rumor to everyone.
Similarrepeat, spread, relate, recount, circulate
Note
The word moves from goods to talk: what is passed along is a story, a rumor or an overheard remark. It takes the story as object and the listener with to, as in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express (1934): he retailed to them the curious interchange. Alan Ryan applies it to blood-libel fantasies, which shows its edge: retailing a tale suggests secondhand telling, not authorship.
Checked 7 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
Agatha Christie wrote Murder on the Orient Express, first published in book form in 1934. agathachristie.com
The quoted words occur in the novel's narration. en.wiktionary.org
Alan Ryan used retailed when discussing blood-libel fantasies. en.wiktionary.org
8
verbarchaic
To sell goods at second hand, passing on to a new buyer what was bought from another seller.
Note
Here the selling is secondhand: goods bought from one seller and passed on again to the next buyer. The sense is archaic and turns up in older prose, not current trade talk. A reader who meets it there should not take it as ordinary selling to customers. In new writing, resell or sell secondhand says the same thing plainly.
Checked 7 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
Retail has a sense meaning to sell goods secondhand. en.wiktionary.org
The secondhand-selling sense is archaic. en.wiktionary.org

Practice

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Origin

The word comes from the Old French verb retaillier.

Checked 7 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

Retail comes from the Old French verb retaillier. en.wiktionary.org