Wholesale Meaning

Meaning of wholesale in English

(especially of something bad or too extreme) complete or affecting a lot of things, people, places, etc.:

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

• (all) in one piece idiom
• absolute
• aggregate
• all or nothing idiom
• all told idiom
• all-in-one
• all-inclusive
• fell
• full strength
• full-bodied
• full-fledged
• full-length
• fully
• stone-cold
• thorough
• thoroughgoingly
• thoroughly
• through and through idiom
• to the last idiom
• totality

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/ ˈhoʊl.seɪl / uk

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( UK trade price )

the price at which goods are sold to stores by the people who produce them, rather than the price which the customer usually pays in the store:

I bought my coat direct from the factory at wholesale.
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SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

wholesale | Intermediate English

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/ ˈhoʊlˌseɪl /

wholesale noun [U] ( SELLING )

the activity of selling goods, usually in large amounts, to businesses which then sell them to the public

wholesaler

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/ ˈhoʊlˌseɪ·lər /

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wholesale adjective ( COMPLETE )

involving everyone or everything; complete:
What the system needs is wholesale reform.

(Definition of wholesale from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

wholesale | Business English

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/ ˈhəʊlseɪl / us

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the activity of selling goods to stores, other businesses, etc. rather than to the public:
He raised prices slightly for wholesale and retail.

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/ ˈhəʊlseɪl / us

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Producer prices are a gauge of costs at the wholesale level.
a wholesale price/rate The wholesale market price of gasoline is starting to rise.
wholesale sales/trade During August, total wholesale sales dropped 0.9%.
a wholesale business/company He set up a wholesale business and internet site.
He takes his produce daily to the wholesale market in Bradford.
Squeezed between manufacturers and retailers is the wholesale sector.

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/ ˈhəʊlseɪl / us

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if something is sold wholesale, it is sold to stores, other businesses, etc. rather than to the public:

Breeders who sell puppies wholesale to a broker or pet store must obtain a USDA license.
All of her furniture was bought wholesale.

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(Definition of wholesale from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Translations of wholesale

in Chinese (Traditional)
賣, 批發的（地）, 成批賣的（地）…
in Chinese (Simplified)
卖, 批发的（地）, 成批卖的（地）…
in Spanish
al por mayor, total, de modo general…
in Portuguese
atacado, de atacado, por atacado…
in more languages
in Turkish
in Indonesian
in Vietnamese
in Swedish
in Norwegian
in Ukrainian
in Russian
toptan, toptan satılan, geniş kapsamlı…
en/de gros, systématique…
in het groot, op grote schaal…
ve velkém, hromadný…
en gros-, en gros, masse-…
secara borongan, besar-besaran…
ซึ่งขายส่ง…
bán sỉ, trên quy mô lớn…
hurtowy, totalny, masowy…
grossist-, parti-, utan åtskillnad…
borong, besar-besaran…
der Großhandel, (in) Massen…
en gros(-), masse-(drap), i stor stil…
оптовий, масовий, у великих розмірах…
оптовый, массовый…
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More meanings of wholesale

• wholesale bank
• wholesale price
• wholesale cooperative
• wholesale price index
• wholesale , at trade price

Word of the Day

said to emphasize that doing many different things, or often changing what you do, makes life interesting

August 20, 2025

August 18, 2025
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© Cambridge University Press Assessment 2025

© Cambridge University Press Assessment 2025

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wholesale

Adjective Quotes–> Extra Examples–> The crops originated from wholesale growers. Is that price retail or wholesale? Verb Quotes–> Extra Examples–> The company wholesales clothing to boutiques in the area.

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Bureau of Labor Statistics revisions show a sharp slowdown in payroll growth in the second quarter of 2025, with the biggest step-downs in low-wage industries such as retail, wholesale, leisure, and hospitality. — Emma Burleigh, Fortune, 13 Aug. 2025 One key to the strategy has been balancing direct sales through its own website and stores and sales through wholesale. — Gabrielle Fonrouge, CNBC, 12 Aug. 2025

To be sure, the spike in wholesale vegetable prices last month did not cause a jump in prices paid by shoppers. — Max Zahn, ABC News, 16 Aug. 2025 Compared with a year earlier, wholesale prices rose 3.3%. — Nino Paoli, Fortune, 15 Aug. 2025

It got picked up wholesale from blog to blog and Tumblr to Tumblr so rapidly that the pedigree of it got lost. — Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 10 Aug. 2012 ByteStyle, the company’s code of values, preaches a culture that could have been lifted wholesale from Google or Amazon: diverse, inclusive, radically honest and transparent. — Alex W. Palmer, New York Times, 20 Dec. 2022

Alivia launched online in 2020 and in 2021 started wholesaling its clothing. — Lisa Lockwood, WWD, 20 Feb. 2025 The idea was to create the first ever international drugstore chain operator and drug wholesaling company. — Phil Wahba, Fortune, 17 June 2025 See All Example Sentences for wholesale