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grocer

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gro⋅cer

[groh-ser]
–noun
the owner or operator of a store that sells general food supplies and certain nonedible articles of household use, as soaps and paper products.

Origin:
1325–75; ME < OF gross(i)er wholesale merchant. See gross, -er 2
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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gro·cer   (grō'sər)   
n.  One that sells foodstuffs and various household supplies.

[Middle English, wholesaler, from Anglo-Norman grosser, from Medieval Latin grossārius, grocerius, from Late Latin grossus, thick.]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Word Origin & History

grocer 
1255, "one who buys and sells in gross," from Anglo-Fr. grosser, from M.L. grossarius "wholesaler," lit. "dealer in quantity," from L.L. grossus "coarse (of food), great, gross" (see gross). Sense of "a merchant selling individual items of food" is 16c. Grocery "a grocer's shop" is 1828, Amer.Eng. Self-service groceries were a novelty in 1913 when a Montana, U.S., firm copyrighted the word groceteria (with the ending from cafeteria used in an un-etymological sense) to name them. The term existed through the 1920s.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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