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Glite Dictionary
small stores

small stores

8.1
A shop on a ship where sailors buy personal items taken from their pay
  • noun
  • UK
translation icon : tiendas pequeñas
  • He deducted the cost of his small stores purchases directly from his navy pay.

Examples

  • Sailors could purchase soap and shaving cream from the small stores on the ship.

  • The ship's small stores included snacks and toiletries.

  • The small stores office was open daily for crew members to buy personal necessities.

  • He bought some items from the small store on the base.

  • Sailors could purchase essential items like snacks and toiletries from the small stores on the ship.

  • He often visited the small stores at the naval base to buy personal items charged to his pay.

  • The small stores allowed crew members to conveniently buy personal necessities while at sea.

Synonyms

smalls
vssmall stores
  • UK
6 8.4

Items you wear next to your skin, especially underwear, or a few coins

is a navy practice selling regulated personal items billed to a sailor's pay

Surface Forms

small stores singular
small store plural

Morphology

small + store

The core sense—'small supplies' or 'small reserves'—is directly derivable from 'small' + 'stores', so a B1 learner would grasp a general meaning. However, the specific naval/institutional sense (personal items sold aboard ships and charged to pay) is technical and not predictable from the constituents, and 'store' could also be misinterpreted as 'shop', so the expression is only partially transparent.

Etymology

Small stores comes from ships' tiny cupboards called stores, where sailors bought small things like soap and shaving cream. These items were often 'charged to pay', so the phrase came to mean personal items sold on the ship and taken from a sailor's wages.