shop
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A mercantile establishment for the retail sale of goods or services.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
shahpIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈʃɑp
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A mercantile establishment for the retail sale of goods or services
An establishment that sells goods or services to the public; originally only a physical location, but now a virtual establishment as well.
A place where things are manufactured or crafted; a workshop.
Workplace; office. Used mainly in expressions such as shop talk, closed shop and shop floor.
figurativeuncountable
Discussion of business or professional affairs.
An act of shopping, especially routine shopping for food and other domestic supplies.
verb
intransitive
To visit stores or shops to browse or explore merchandise, especially with the intention of buying such merchandise.
transitive
To browse or purchase products from (a catalog, an internet website, etc.), mostly from home.
transitiveslangchiefly uk
To report the criminal activities or whereabouts of someone to an authority.
transitiveslangchiefly uk
To imprison.
transitivecolloquial
To investigate or evaluate as a mystery shopper.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A mercantile establishment for the retail sale of goods or services
Used this way, shop is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use shop
- “He bought it at a shop on Cape Cod.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Searching for or buying goods or services.
Someone who visits stores in search of articles to buy.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A craftsman skilled in operating machine tools.
A union member who is elected to represent fellow workers in negotiating with management.
Talk about your business that only others in the same business can understand.
A window of a store facing onto the street.
A bag made of plastic or strong paper (often with handles).
A handbasket used to carry goods while shopping.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
A merchant who owns or manages a shop.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.