storehouse

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English storhous,^[2][3] formed from Middle English stor + hous, the ancestors of store and house.^[2][4][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A building in which goods are stored: 1348, in the accounts of the Exchequer.^[4] Etymonline dates it to the mid 14th century,^[5] and Merriam-Webster to the 14th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the literal building the word passed to anything from which something can be drawn in plenty.^[4] The figurative use is recorded from 1578, in J. Banister's Historie of Man,^[4] and Etymonline dates it by the 1570s.^[5] Johnson (1755) gave both sides in one definition, "magazine; treasury; place in which things are hoarded", quoting Hooker on Scripture as a storehouse of wisdom beside Shakespeare's storehouses crammed with grain in Coriolanus.^[6]

Timeline

• 1348 – a building in which goods are stored.^[4]
• 1578 – figuratively, a rich source of something.^[4][5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A building where goods or provisions are kept; a warehouse or depot.^[7][2][4]
2. An abundant supply or source of something; a repository: The old archive is a storehouse of local legends.^[2][4]

Related words

• store
• house

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
7. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins