a. singular (without indefinite article) That with which a household, camp, etc., is stored; food, clothing, and other necessaries, collected for future use. Now rare. †Also furniture (of a house or building).

†b. to keep, take to or for one's own store: to appropriate, take possession of. Obsolete.

c. collective plural. Articles (such as food, clothing, arms, etc.) serving for the equipment and maintenance of an army, a ship; occasionally of a household, etc. Cf. marine store n.

a. Sufficient or abundant supply (of something needful). †Hence (more fully, great, good store), abundance, large number or quantity (of something whether desirable or not).Proverb, store is no sore, i.e. abundance does no harm.

†b. Plenty; abundance (of food or necessaries).

†c. in (great, good) store: in abundance. Obsolete.

d. Used adverbially or as postpositive or predicative adjective = ‘in store’, in plenty, abundant(ly). Also good, great store. Now archaic and dialect.

a. A person's collective possessions; accumulated goods or money. †to gather to store: to hoard up money.

b. transferred and figurative.

a. Something precious; a treasure. Obsolete (see 6b).

b. In various phrases with the sense ‘to value, esteem, prize; make account of’: †to tell, make, hold, set (great, little, no) store of (obsolete); †to set at (much, little) store (obsolete); to set (great, etc.) store by; to †put, set (great, etc.) store upon.

†c. to stand (a person) in store: to be valuable to. Obsolete.

a. A stock (of anything material or immaterial) laid up for future use. Phrase, to lay in a store.

†b. The stock of a tradesman; the tools, etc. of a workman. Obsolete.

c. collective plural. Stocks, reserves; often in immaterial sense, treasures, accumulated resources.

a. Storage, reserve, keeping. Now somewhat rare. to keep (young animals) for store: cf. Compounds 1c, 9.

b. in store: in reserve, laid up for future use. Hence (of events or conditions in the future) in store for: awaiting (a person).

a. A place where stores are kept, a warehouse; a storehouse. Also figurative.

b. Computing. = memory n. 7b.

a. Chiefly North American and elsewhere outside the U.K. In early use, a shop on a large scale, and dealing in a great variety of articles (see quot. 1808²). Now, equivalent to the British use of shop n. 3. Also in to keep, tend store. The use of the word in this sense has not become common in the U.K. except in combinations, as chain store n. at chain n. Compounds 3, department store n. at department n. 5 (see under the first elements), store detective n. at Compounds 1d(a), in which it still refers to a large shop.

b. In Great Britain after about 1850, the word became current in the designation co-operative store, denoting the shop in which a co-operative trading society exposes goods for sale (originally to its own members only, but later usually also to the outside public). Commonly in plural (‘The Stores’), applied esp. to the establishment of any of the larger London co-operative societies, consisting of a number of departments, each dealing in a separate class of goods. In imitation of this use, the plural (‘——'s Stores’, ‘—— & Co.'s Stores’) was often adopted as the designation of a trading establishment resembling ‘The Stores’ in extent and in multifariousness of business.

c. plural construed as singular.

a. transitive. To furnish, supply, stock (a person, place, etc.) with something.

†b. const. of. Obsolete.

†c. To dose with (drugs or medicines). Obsolete.

a. To reinforce, provide for the continuance or improvement of (a stock, race, breed). Obsolete exc. Scottish dialect in to store the kin: see quot. 1866.

†b. To produce as offspring; also, to breed, rear (young animals). Obsolete.

a. To keep in store for future use; to collect and keep in reserve; to form a store, stock or supply of; to accumulate, hoard.

b. With up, away, †in.

c. spec. To deposit (goods, furniture, etc.) in a store or warehouse for temporary preservation or safe-keeping.

d. Computing. To retain a physical representation of (data or instructions) that enables them to be subsequently retrieved.

e. Computing. To transfer into a store or storage location.