Word.ws English Dictionary

private stock

private stock noun: a supply of something, especially alcoholic beverages, belonging to a person or a commercial establishment and of such quality that it is usually reserved for the owner or for favoured friends or customers.

Noun

private stock (usually uncountable, plural private stocks)

  1. (usually, set phrase) A supply of something, especially alcoholic beverages, belonging to a person or a commercial establishment and of such quality that it is usually reserved for the owner or for favoured friends or customers.
    • [T]o feed 126 souls, we had but . . .
      Three ham-sandwiches, and a pot of currant-jelly, and 197 bottles
      of brandy, rum, madeira, pale ale (my private stock) . . .1869, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 6, in Burlesques
    • The refreshment was brought in, and before the session adjourned, they had lowered the contents of a black bottle of private stock by several fingers.1906, Andy Adams, “Seigerman's Per Cent”, in Cattle Brands

Examples of private stock in a sentence

  • And it is heartening to be able to find a good and heady mutton chop to accompany a club member's claret from his private stock.1989 March 12, Christopher Idone, “Food: Club Comfort”, in New York Times, retrieved 21 Jan 2014:
  • Booker employed his private stock as a late afternoon delight for visitors to the Boston distillery.2011, F. Paul Pacult, American Still Life: The Jim Beam Story and the Making of the World's #1 Bourbon, →ISBN:

Forms of private stock

pluralprivate stocks

Questions about private stock

What does private stock mean?
Private stock means a supply of something, especially alcoholic beverages, belonging to a person or a commercial establishment and of such quality that it is usually reserved for the owner or for favoured friends or customers.
How do you use private stock in a sentence?
And it is heartening to be able to find a good and heady mutton chop to accompany a club member's claret from his private stock.
What part of speech is private stock?
Private stock is a noun.
What is the plural of private stock?
The plural of private stock is private stocks.

Words near private stock in the dictionary

  1. private ships
  2. private shop
  3. private shops
  4. private siding
  5. private sidings
  6. private stock
  7. private stocks
  8. private-label
  9. private-labeled
  10. private-labeling
  11. private-labelled

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: private stock (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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