Word.ws English Dictionary

stock-and-trade

stock-and-trade is the alternative form of stock-in-trade.

Meaning of stock-in-trade

Noun

stock-in-trade (usually uncountable, plural stocks in trade)

  1. (usually) Merchandise and other necessary supplies kept on hand in order to conduct business.
    • 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.1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, “chapter 4”, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC
  2. (usually) A technique, skill or ability habitually used by a person, group of persons, or an organization, often in the course of their business.
    • Ideas are the chief stock-in-trade of newspaper writers and generally they are the scarcest stock in market, but they do come occasionally1890, Nellie Bly, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, chapter 1

Questions about stock-and-trade

What is stock-and-trade the alternative form of?
Stock-and-trade is the alternative form of stock-in-trade.

Words near stock-and-trade in the dictionary

  1. stock variables
  2. stock vehicle
  3. stock vehicles
  4. stock video
  5. stock videos
  6. stock-and-trade
  7. stock-bow
  8. stock-bows
  9. stock-boy
  10. stock-boys
  11. stock-gillyflower

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stock-and-trade (page history and authors); stock-in-trade (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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