stock-in-trade
/ˌstɒkɪnˈtreɪd
/noun [mass noun]
1The typical subject or commodity a person, company, or profession uses or deals in: information is our stock-in-trade...
- The insurance was against risks including burglary and theft, and the subject matter of the insurance was his stock-in-trade as a manufacturing furrier.
- Take his other big stock-in-trade, photographic collages, of which there are several on the walls.
- He used this professional leeway to venture away from his stock-in-trade gospel/soul sound into balladry and country music, meeting with a good deal of success.
1.1Qualities, ideas, or behaviour characteristic of a person or their work: flippancy is his stock-in-trade...
- A large part of his stock-in-trade consists of holding fantastic theories up to a light and debunking them.
- We must first dismiss (with regrets) the conceptual equipment and interpretations that had been our stock-in-trade throughout the decades in which we relied upon the community study.
- When confronted with a few probing questions, he treats the journalist as an outright political opponent, resorting immediately to his stock-in-trade - provocative red-baiting.
2The goods kept in hand by a business for the purposes of its trade: my client will provide sufficient funds for you to purchase your stock-in-trade...
- Banks sometimes use pledge in financing dealers' stock-in-trade and international trade.
- Quite regardless of whether credit is extended to the customer to finance the acquisition of plant, of equipment, or of stock-in-trade, the customer requires the custody or use of the items involved.
- Assets such as stock-in-trade or plant and machinery can be passed by delivery. This means that this property can be transferred without triggering a stamp duty liability.
