shop
Pluralshops
Pluralshops
- 1A business that sells goods or services to the public, whether a physical location or an online one.
The corner shop stocks everything from groceries to greeting cards.
Many independent shops now run online stores alongside their physical premises.
UsageSay go to the shop or at the shop; from shop to shop describes browsing along a street.
Similarstore, outlet, retailer
Note
The word began as a building rather than a business: Old English sċoppa meant a shed, booth or stall, from a Germanic root for a barn. The retail sense grew out of that booth, and William Cowper's shoppers in The Task (1785) still wander "from shop to shop" past the polished counter.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Shop derives from Old English sċoppa, denoting a shed, booth or stall, and ultimately from a Germanic root meaning barn or shed. en.wiktionary.org
- The retail meaning developed from the earlier word for a booth or shed used for trade. en.wiktionary.org
- William Cowper wrote The Task, first published in 1785. en.wikisource.org
- The Task describes shoppers wandering “from shop to shop” and mentions a polished counter. eighteenthcenturypoetry.org
- 2To look at goods in stores, catalogs or on websites, especially with the intention of buying, often comparing several sellers.
They prefer to shop early to avoid the holiday crowds.
Shopping for groceries takes her about an hour each week.
UsageSay go shopping (not
incorrect: go to shopping) and shop for what you want: shop for gifts. - 3A place where things are made or repaired; a workshop, including a garage where vehicles are serviced.
The blacksmith's shop was filled with the smell of hot metal.
Apprentices learn their trade in small shops across the region.
UsageOften after a trade or job: a tailor's shop, a repair shop, a body shop.
Similarworkshop
Note
Here the shop is where work gets done rather than where goods are sold, and the use is old: Shakespeare's tailor in The Comedie of Errors calls a man "in his shop."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors contains an early workshop use of shop: Antipholus of Syracuse reports that a tailor called him into his shop. The note paraphrases the tailor's action; the tailor is not the speaker. folger.edu
- 4A regular trip to buy food and household supplies; also, the items bought on such a trip.
On Sunday mornings we do a big shop so the fridge is full for the week.
A quick shop for milk and bread turned into an hour at the supermarket.
UsageSay do a shop, a big shop, the weekly shop.
- 5A person's workplace or office, surviving mainly in expressions such as shop talk, closed shop, and shop floor.
Decisions made at head office rarely match what actually happens on the shop floor.
The closed shop required all employees to join the union.
Less common meanings
- 6A group of school classes that teach practical, vocational skills such as woodworking or metalworking.
She signed up for shop to learn how to weld.
Many students discover a love of carpentry in high school shop.
UsageUsually without a: take shop, learn welding in shop, or say shop class.
- 7Conversation about business or professional affairs.
At dinner, the two doctors talked shop while everyone else got bored.
He hates it when his colleagues talk shop at the dinner table.
UsageMostly in talk shop, with no article.
Note
Earlier in the twentieth century the word stood on its own. Virginia Woolf's Mary in Night and Day (1919) will not "allow shop at tea," and Winston Churchill writes in The Second World War that "nothing but shop was ever talked." In 1917 it still wore inverted commas.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Shop occurred independently in this conversational sense in the early twentieth century. dev.gutenberg.org
- Virginia Woolf wrote Night and Day, first published in 1919. columbia.edu
- Mary is the character who says that shop is not allowed at tea. dev.gutenberg.org
- Winston Churchill uses the quoted wording in The Second World War. fadedpage.com
- A 1917 example prints shop in inverted commas. en.wiktionary.org
- 8To digitally edit or alter a photograph using image-editing software.
Magazines often shop cover images to smooth skin and brighten colors.
The activist accused the campaign of shopping the photo to exaggerate the crowd.
UsageShopped usually suggests tampering: a shopped photo; elsewhere edit or retouch is clearer.
Similarretouch, airbrush, doctor, edit
Note
A clipping of photoshop, itself a verb made from the name of the editing software, and very much Internet slang.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Shop in the image-editing sense is a clipping of photoshop. aclanthology.org
- The verb photoshop derives from the editing software's name. en.wiktionary.org
- 9To assess a store or business by posing as an ordinary customer, as a mystery shopper does.
Head office hired auditors to shop every franchise before the holidays.
The chain pays people to shop its stores and report on how staff treat customers.
UsageOften in the passive: a clerk who was shopped.
Note
A United States Bureau of Employment Security case describes a grocery clerk dismissed after being "shopped," and Stuart Tannock's Youth at Work (2001) writes of employees who have "been shopped." The object can be the worker as well as the store, which is why the word can sound like surveillance from the staff side.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The cited account describes a grocery clerk dismissed after being "shopped". en.wiktionary.org
- Stuart Tannock wrote Youth at Work, published in 2001. tupress.temple.edu
- Tannock's book uses "been shopped" about employees. en.wiktionary.org
- 10To report someone's crimes or whereabouts to the police or other authority.
One of the gang shopped the others to detectives for a lighter sentence.
Loyalty meant they would never shop a fellow member to the authorities.
UsageSay shop someone to the police or shop them in; it casts the informer as disloyal.
- 11Called out by a customer to summon a shop assistant when none is in attendance.
"Shop!" the gentleman cried, tapping his cane on the floorboards.
She waited at the empty counter, then ventured a hesitant "Shop!"
Note
A dated call from the days of the unattended counter. A customer stepping into an empty shop simply called out the word to bring someone from the back.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Shop was a dated one-word call used to summon a shop assistant. en.wiktionary.org
- 12To dismiss someone from their job.
Note
A reader who finds a worker "shopped" in period prose may be meeting this dismissal sense; context separates it from the informing sense and from the old slang for imprisoning someone.
- 13To put someone behind bars; to imprison a person.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English shoppe, from Old English sċoppa ("shed, booth, stall, shop"), going back through Proto-Germanic *skupp- ("barn, shed") to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to bend, curve, or vault." It is related to Dutch schop, German Schuppen ("shed"), and French échoppe ("booth, shop"). The verb is formed from the noun.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 8 facts
- Shop comes through Middle English shoppe from Old English sċoppa. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English sċoppa meant a shed, booth, stall, or shop. en.wiktionary.org
- The ancestry includes Proto-Germanic *skupp-, meaning barn or shed. en.wiktionary.org
- The ancestry extends to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning to bend, curve, or vault. en.wiktionary.org
- Shop is related to Dutch schop. en.wiktionary.org
- Shop is related to German Schuppen, meaning shed. en.wiktionary.org
- Shop is related to French échoppe, meaning booth or shop. en.wiktionary.org
- The verb shop is formed from the noun. en.wiktionary.org