grocer: [15] Etymologically, a grocer is simply somebody who sells ‘in gross’ – that is, wholesale. The word’s ancestor is medieval Latin grossārius ‘wholesale dealer’, a derivative of late Latin grossus ‘large, bulky’ (from which English gets gross). It passed into English via Old French grossier and Anglo-Norman grosser. In practice, the term seems largely restricted in Britain from earliest times to merchants who dealt in spices and similar imported edible goods, and as early as the mid 15th century it was being used for retailers who sold such goods in small quantities to the public. Greengrocer is an 18th-century formation. => gross
grocer (n.)
early 15c. (mid-13c. as a surname), "wholesale dealer, one who buys and sells in gross," corrupted spelling of Anglo-French grosser, Old French grossier, from Medieval Latin grossarius "wholesaler," literally "dealer in quantity" (source also of Spanish grosero, Italian grosseiro), from Late Latin grossus "coarse (of food), great, gross" (see gross (adj.)). Sense of "a merchant selling individual items of food" is 16c.; in Middle English this was a spicer.
双语例句
1. Go down to the grocer's and get some sugar.
去杂货店给我买点糖来.
来自《简明英汉词典》
2. A grocer used to need to know how to blend tea.
杂货商以往都必须知道如何混合茶叶.
来自《简明英汉词典》
3. Send round to the grocer's for a tin of biscuits.
叫人到食品店去买一听饼干.
来自《简明英汉词典》
4. The cook and the grocer haggled over the price of eggs.
