Store

How to spell store

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce store

What does store mean?

1. verbTo keep something safely in a particular place for use in the future.
2. nounA place, usually a shop, where goods are sold to the public.
3. nounA supply or reserve of something kept for future use.

Store in a sentence

• verb

  We store the winter blankets in the loft until they are needed.

• noun

  The corner store stays open until midnight on weekends.

• noun

  The expedition carried a generous store of tinned food and fuel.

• verb

  The app can store your documents securely in the cloud.

• noun

  She manages a clothing store in the new shopping centre.

• noun

  He has a store of patience that never seems to run out.

Where does store come from?

Language of origin: French

The word entered English in the 1200s from the Old French verb estorer, which meant to build, furnish, or provide, and that in turn came from the Latin instaurare, meaning to set up, renew, or restore. The earliest English sense was about provisioning: gathering and keeping a supply of goods against future need, which is why a stockpile of food or equipment is still called a store. From that idea of a kept supply, the noun later came to mean the place where goods are held and, by the 1700s especially in American usage, a shop where they are sold. The verb sense, to keep something safely for later, simply preserves the original Latin notion of laying things up. The single silent-feeling vowel cluster causes no real trap here; the spelling has stayed remarkably stable for eight centuries.

How the word is built

• store (from Old French estorer / Latin instaurare: to provide, restore)