grocer

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a person who owns or works in a shop that sells food and everyday household supplies

   The grocer stacked fresh fruit beside the shop entrance each morning.

Simplified etymology

Grocer arose in Middle English for a merchant who sold goods “in the gross,” meaning in large quantities. It belongs to the same word family as gross and engross, ultimately deriving from Latin grossus, “large.”

From Middle English grocer or grosser, from Anglo-French grossier ("wholesaler"), related to gros ("large; in bulk"). The word originally denoted a merchant who sold goods by the gross, then narrowed to a retailer of food and household provisions.

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary