Etymologically
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grocery

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈɡɹəʊ.s(ə.)ɹi/ (UK); /ˈɡɹoʊ.s(ə.)ɹi/ (US)[1]

Etymology

It is Middle English grocerie, from grocer with the suffix -y,[2][3] or from Old French grosserie, from grossier, a wholesale merchant.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Goods sold by a grocer: the mid-15th century, 1436 in the OED;[4][5] earlier, in the early 15th century, the name of the Grocers' Hall in London.[4]

Semantic evolution

The trade of a grocer is from 1689.[5] A grocer's shop is by 1803, especially in American English, where that use restricted the sense of goods sold by a grocer to the plural, groceries, by the mid-19th century.[4] In American usage of 1828–32 a grocery could also be a dram-shop.[5] Self-service groceries were a novelty in 1913, when a Montana firm trademarked groceteria, a word that lasted through the 1920s.[4]

Timeline

  • early 15th century – the Grocers' Hall.[4]
  • 1436 – goods sold by a grocer.[5]
  • 1689 – the grocer's trade.[5]
  • 1803 – a grocer's shop.[4]
  • 1913 – groceteria.[4]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A shop selling food and household supplies.
  2. (groceries) The goods sold by a grocer.

Word family

  • greengrocery
  • groceryman

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press