chain store

noun

1. one of a group of retail stores under the same ownership and selling similar merchandise.

chain store

noun

1. one of several retail enterprises under the same ownership and management Also calledmultiple store

chain store

1. One of many retail stores owned by a single corporation and offering similar products. Examples include Sears and Safeway.

Word History and Origins

Origin of chain store¹

An Americanism dating back to 1905–10

Example Sentences

Next time you go to a mall or a large chain store, such as Walmart, take a look around.

From Science News For Students

Paris credits a similar program in the 2000s with saving local amenities and stemming the rise of chain stores in its center.

From Time

The memo also reveals a shrinking lead for Walmart over Instacart, the online grocery company whose contractors shop for orders at partner grocery chain stores and deliver them to customer doors that same day.

From Vox

Our sleek smartphones, sterile chain stores and clean modern spaces tell lies of austerity.

From Washington Post

In fact, Daunt’s whole strategy, which relies on localizing the content of chain stores and making books easier to browse, seems right out of the 1990s.

From Fortune

There was the time that Graham Joyce and I went to a chain store in the suburbs of Chicago, to sit together to sign books.

From The Daily Beast

The ICSC/Goldman Sachs index of chain-store sales has been chugging along.

From The Daily Beast

The dresses she has worn at the Convention have both been from Talbot's, the discount yet stil prim-and-proper chain store.

From The Daily Beast

Carole first wore the blue dress from chain store Reiss with a black belt to Ascot two years ago.

From The Daily Beast

The chain-store buyers prowling the floor, Bonnie says, are interested.

From The Daily Beast

In the chain-store system of merchandising we see the opposite extreme of coffee retailing.

From Project Gutenberg

Then he had told me that the chain-store people had made him an offer, and he went to work in their Hartford store.

From Project Gutenberg

"I should have thought there were sufficient chain-store magnates," said Tarsh.

From Project Gutenberg

The shop sells as its leaders home-made English tarts that no chain-store could supply.

From Project Gutenberg

Notice the places of the big drug and tobacco chain-store systems.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• boutique
• convenience store
• deli
• department store
• discount store
• drugstore
• emporium
• grocery store
• market
• outlet
• shop
• shopping center
• showroom
• supermarket