stock-in-trade

English

Alternative forms

• stock and trade
• stock in trade

Noun

stock-in-trade (plural stocks in trade)

1. Merchandise and other necessary supplies kept on hand in order to do business.
   • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, “chapter 4”, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, , published 1848, →OCLC:

     The stock-in-trade of this old gentleman comprised chronometers, barometers, telescopes, compasses, charts, maps, sextants, quadrants, and specimens of every kind of instrument used in the working of a ship's course, or the keeping of a ship's reckoning, or the prosecuting of a ship's discoveries.

   • 1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VIII, in Capricornia‎, page 122:

     […] Oscar was in the midst of drafting an account of Red Ochre's stock-in-trade for presenting to a man named Burywell who was contemplating taking on the lease […]

   • 1962 October, M. J. Wilson, “Three years of dieselisation at Devons Road depot”, in Modern Railways, page 266:

     Devons Road has had its teething troubles as a dieselised depot, just as have the diesel locomotives which are its stock-in-trade.

2. A technique, skill or ability habitually used by a person, group of persons, or an organization, often in the course of their business.
   • 1890, Nellie Bly, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, chapter 1:

     Ideas are the chief stock-in-trade of newspaper writers and generally they are the scarcest stock in market, but they do come occasionally

Translations

References

• “stock-in-trade”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.