shop
pronunciation
How to pronounce shop in British English:
UK [ʃɒp]
How to pronounce shop in American English:
US [ʃɑːp]
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- Noun:
- a mercantile establishment for the retail sale of goods or services
- small workplace where handcrafts or manufacturing are done
- a course of instruction in a trade (as carpentry or electricity)
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- Verb:
- do one's shopping
- do one's shopping at; do business with; be a customer or client of
- shop around; not necessarily buying
- give away information about somebody
Word Origin
- shop
- shop: [13] The word shop had humble beginnings. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *skoppan, which denoted a small additional structure, such as a lean-to shed or a porch. There is one isolated example of an Old English descendant of this – sceoppa, which denoted a ‘treasury’ – but this does not appear to have survived. The modern English word was borrowed from Old French eschoppe ‘booth, stall’, which in turn had got it from Middle Low German schoppe.German dialect schopf ‘shed, shelter’ comes from the same source. The verb shop originated in the 16th century, in the sense ‘imprison’ (reflecting a now obsolete slang use of the noun shop for ‘prison’). This is the ancestor of modern British slang shop ‘inform against’. The sense ‘visit shops to buy things’ emerged in the mid 18th century.
- shop (n.)
- c. 1300, "booth or shed for trade or work," perhaps from Old English scoppa, a rare word of uncertain meaning, apparently related to scypen "cowshed," from Proto-Germanic *skoppan "small additional structure" (cognates: Old High German scopf "building without walls, porch," German dialectal Scopf "porch, cart-shed, barn," German Schuppen "a shed"), from root *skupp-. Or the Middle English word was acquired from Old French eschoppe "booth, stall" (Modern French échoppe), which is a Germanic loan-word from the same root. Meaning "building or room set aside for sale of merchandise" is from mid-14c. Meaning "schoolroom equipped for teaching vocational arts" is from 1914, American English. Sense of "matters pertaining to one's trade" is from 1814 (as in talk shop (v.), 1860).
- shop (v.)
- 1680s, "to bring something to a shop, to expose for sale," from shop (n.). The meaning "to visit shops for the purpose of examining or purchasing goods" is first attested 1764. Related: Shopped; shopping. Shop around is from 1922. Shopping cart is recorded from 1956; shopping list first attested 1913; transferred and figurative use is from 1959.
Example
- 1. When planning the new building , management incorporated employee requests , including a coffee shop and a dry cleaner .
- 2. The goal : to give teenagers a debit card loaded with prepaid cash so that they could shop online .
- 3. The web has transformed how we shop .
- 4. Apple is becoming an open shop .
- 5. They were pictured together in a coffee shop in central .