Retailing

How to spell retailing

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce retailing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does retailing mean?

1. nounThe business or activity of selling goods directly to consumers, usually in small quantities.
2. verbSelling goods to the public, especially at a stated price.

Retailing in a sentence

• noun

  After years in fashion retailing, she opened her own boutique.

• verb

  The company is retailing the new model at a much lower price than rivals.

• noun

  Online retailing has transformed how supermarkets manage their stock.

• verb

  That warehouse is retailing surplus furniture directly to the public.

Where does retailing come from?

Language of origin: French

This word goes back to the Old French verb retaillier, meaning 'to cut off' or 'to clip into pieces', formed from the prefix re- and tailler, 'to cut'. The underlying idea was that of breaking bulk: dividing a large quantity into small portions for individual customers, as opposed to selling wholesale in bulk. English took up 'retail' in the late 1300s, first as a noun for the sale of goods in small amounts, and the modern '-ing' form names the activity or trade of doing so. The same tailler root, literally 'to cut', also gives us 'tailor' (one who cuts cloth) and 'detail' (something cut off, a small part), which is a useful memory hook: retailing means cutting goods down into sellable pieces. The spelling keeps the silent reminder of that cutting sense in the 'tail' element, even though nothing physical is being cut today.

How the word is built

• re- (intensive/again)
• tail (from Old French tailler: to cut)
• -ing (noun/verb suffix)