Word.ws English Dictionary

grocer's itch

grocer's itch noun: an itching eruption, a variety of eczema, produced by sugar mites (Tyroglyphus sacchari or Glycyphagus domesticus) or fruit mites (Carpoglyphus lactis et al.).

Noun

grocer's itch (uncountable)

  1. An itching eruption, a variety of eczema, produced by sugar mites (Tyroglyphus sacchari or Glycyphagus domesticus) or fruit mites (Carpoglyphus lactis et al.).
    • “Flour” routinely contained crushed stone or gypsum as a cheap extender. Ground insects could be mixed into brown sugar, often without detection; their use was linked to an unpleasant condition known as “grocer’s itch.”[2018 November, Deborah Blum, “When Milk Was Full of Calf Brains”, in The Atlantic

Questions about grocer's itch

What does grocer's itch mean?
Grocer's itch means an itching eruption, a variety of eczema, produced by sugar mites (Tyroglyphus sacchari or Glycyphagus domesticus) or fruit mites (Carpoglyphus lactis et al.).
What part of speech is grocer's itch?
Grocer's itch is a noun.

Words near grocer's itch in the dictionary

  1. Groby
  2. Grobys
  3. Groce
  4. grocer
  5. grocer's
  6. grocer's itch
  7. grocerant
  8. grocerants
  9. groceraunt
  10. groceraunts
  11. grocerdom

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grocer's itch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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