🛍️ Buying things 🛒 Bought items

shopping

76 1.0

Things you buy from shops

noun
/ˈʃɑːpɪŋ/

: compras

Three women came in carrying shopping bags, arguing in low voices.

Feet for my Sainsbury's shopping which I spend a fortune on every week.

Examples

Anyone seen the shopping bag?

The End We Start From (2023)
The shopping bags were overflowing with fresh produce and bakery items from the market.
I do the week's shopping, change my library book, have lunch and generally go to the pictures.

Brief Encounter (1945)
Look at you with your shopping bags!

Play Dirty (2025)
Next to him is an old lady with a lot of shopping bags.

Fiction book (1993)
You need a shopping cart to get home.

Halloween (1978)
We do all our shopping at the army commissary.

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)
As Joe comes into the room, Jill rises to take the shopping bags from him.

Fiction book (1993)
In one hand, she carried a pink plastic shopping bag crammed full of clothing.

Fiction book (1995)
By the time he left Aunt Mamie's house, he had two shopping bags full of pies and piki bread.

Fiction book (1990)

Synonyms

merchandise

vsshopping

188 3.1

Items sold to people, like T-shirts and posters

are items already bought and owned rather than goods offered for sale

Compounds

shopping mall

62 1.0

A large building or outdoor area with many shops and restaurants

shopping center

38 1.6

A large building with many shops and places to eat

shopping spree

24 3.4

A short time when someone buys many things quickly and spends a lot of money

shopping list

21 1.0

A list of things to buy

shopping cart

15 1.0

A large basket on wheels used in shops to carry items while you shop

shopping bag

14 1.0

A bag, usually plastic or thick paper with handles, used to carry things after shopping

online shopping

Texting

13 1.6

Buying goods or services on the internet

shopping cart

Texting

5 1.6

An online list on a website or app where you put items to buy

shopping mall

Texting

1 3.0

A website where many shops sell things in one place

shopping and dining

1 1.3

Going to shops and restaurants to buy things and eat for fun

shopping needs

1 1.0

A list of things you want or must buy

shopping basket

1 1.0

A small container with a handle used to carry items while you shop in a store

shopping bag

Texting

2.5

A place on a store website or app where you save items before buying them

shopping basket

2.7

A space on a website or app where you keep items you plan to buy before you pay

How Much

haul

61 3.3

shopping

76 1.0

purchase

219 1.1

Surface Forms

shopping singular

shoppings plural

Morphology

shopping = shop (semi-transparent) = shop + ing

Formed from 'shop' + '-ing' but the sense shifts by metonymy from the activity to the resulting goods (purchases), so the relation is related but slightly indirect.

Etymology

Shopping comes from shop 'a place to buy' plus -ing, and it also came to mean the things you have bought, like the items in your 'shopping bag', because people often use the same word for the trip and the goods. So, when someone says 'I put the shopping on the table', they mean the bags or packages you bought.