shop
/ʃɒp
/noun
1A building or part of a building where goods or services are sold: a video shop a barber’s shop...
- Pet shops and supermarkets sell a huge variety of flea dips and shampoos for your pet.
- The goods sold in these shops are a wide variety of household goods and furniture.
- She designs framing for art and sells it to retail shops and furniture stores.
Synonyms
store, retail store, outlet, retail outlet, reseller, cash and carry;
boutique, salon, parlour;
establishment, emporium, department store, supermarket, hypermarket, superstore, warehouse club, warehouse, factory outlet, chain store, mall, shopping mall, shopping centre, retail centre, megastore, bargain basement, concession, market, mart, stall, stand, booth, counter, trading post;
British multiple (shop/store), lock-up;
North American minimart, convenience store, mini-mall
informal shed
North American informal big box
1.1 [in singular] British informal An act of going shopping: she slogged her way round the supermarket doing the weekly shop...
- At the rate I was going the fridge would be sitting unused for 3 days and the weekly shop had to be done.
- What do you do with all the cartons and papers that follow a weekly shop?
- The people of Churchill Flats appealed for an access bus to be provided to take them to Morrisons for a weekly shop.
2 [usually with modifier] A place where things are manufactured or repaired; a workshop: an auto repair shop...
- Lux Studios's space is a former gas station and auto repair shop with all new interiors by FTF Design Studio.
- Without a serial number, a watch cannot be serviced or repaired by an authorized repair shop or the manufacturer.
- Friends Khaled and Said work together in a small auto repair shop.
Synonyms
workshop, workroom, plant, factory, works, manufacturing complex, industrial unit, business unit, mill, foundry, yard, garage, atelier, studio;
British shop floor
archaic manufactory
2.1A room or department in a factory where a particular stage of production is carried out: the machine shop...
- He worked with the power supply vendor and machine shop to get the power supply modified for water cooling.
- Our small machine shop has found it cheaper to import some products from overseas than to build them in-house.
- Patent laws restrict what we may do with the raw materials we buy and seek to transform into products in our factories or machine shops.
2.2 (the shop) informal The place where one works: she pointed to the classroom ceiling—‘I live here, over the shop.’
verb (shops, shopping, shopped)
1 [no object] Visit one or more shops or websites to buy goods: she shopped for groceries twice a week sometimes it’s more convenient to shop online [with object]: take a trip to downtown San Diego to shop the upscale stores of Horton Plaza...
- When we go shopping we have to pick up some stuff the decorator requested.
- Go shopping and pick out the stuff you like at any store, then wait a few weeks and go back to get it when it's sitting on the sale rack.
- If one pair gives you blisters go shopping and pick up a new pair.
Synonyms
go shopping, do the shopping, buy what one needs/wants, buy things, go to the shops;
buy, purchase, get, acquire, obtain, pick up, snap up, procure, stock up on, get in supplies of, look to buy, be in the market for
1.1 (shop around) Look for the best available price or rate for something: they shopped around for cheaper food...
- The trick is to book as far in advance as possible and shop around for the best rates.
- It is important to shop around and compare prices before you swoop in on the ideal gadget.
- Before starting to make extra payments, shop around to find the best possible rate.
2 [with object] British informal Inform on (someone): she shopped her husband to bosses for taking tools home...
- Police are encouraging the public to use the drugs hotline and shop a dealer.
- Even off the record he was unprepared to shop a man who, we both knew, was making his life very difficult at that time.
- School children in Cleckheaton are being urged to shop drug dealers to a confidential helpline.
Synonyms
inform on/against, betray, sell out, tell tales on, be disloyal to, be unfaithful to, break one's promise to, break faith with, stab in the back
informal tell on, rat on, put the finger on, squeal on, stitch up, snitch on, peach on, sing about, sell down the river, blow the whistle on, do the dirty on
British informal grass on, split on
North American informal rat out, finger, fink on, drop a/the dime on
Australian/New Zealand informal pimp on, pool, put someone's pot on
3 [with object] informal Alter (a photographic image) digitally using Photoshop image-editing software: I reckon you shopped the image...
- I can't tell if the photo has been shopped or if these guys were actually there.
- Zoom in and the shopped nature of this image is actually pretty obvious.
- Who cares that photo is shopped?
Phrases
all over the shop
set up shop
shut up shop
talk shop
Origin
Middle English: shortening of Old French eschoppe 'lean-to booth', of West Germanic origin; related to German Schopf 'porch' and English dialect shippon 'cattle shed'. The verb is first recorded (mid 16th century) in the sense 'imprison' (from an obsolete slang use of the noun for 'prison'), hence sense 2 of the verb.
The earliest shops were small stalls or booths, like the ones you might see today in a market or used by a pavement trader. Shop came into English as a medieval shortening of early French eschoppe ‘lean-to booth’. The activity of shopping dates from the 1760s. The slang sense ‘to inform on’ is earlier, dating from 1583—the original implication was of causing someone to be locked up. A slang dictionary of 1874 first recorded all over the shop as ‘pugilistic [boxing] slang’—to inflict severe punishment on an opponent was ‘to knock him all over the shop’. Nowadays it means ‘everywhere, in all directions’, or ‘wildly or erratically’.