wholesale Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun the selling of goods to merchants; usually in large quantities for resale to consumers
  2. verb sell in large quantities
  3. adjective satellite ignoring distinctions
    sweeping.
    • sweeping generalizations
    • wholesale destruction
  4. adverb at a wholesale price
    • I can sell it to you wholesale
  5. adverb on a large scale without careful discrimination
    in large quantities.
    • I buy food wholesale

WordNet

Whole"sale` noun
Definitions
  1. Sale of goods by the piece or large quantity, as distinguished from retail.
    Some, from vanity or envy, despise a valuable book, and throw contempt upon it by wholesale. I. Watts.
Whole"sale` adjective
Definitions
  1. Pertaining to, or engaged in, trade by the piece or large quantity; selling to retailers or jobbers rather than to consumers; as, a wholesale merchant; the wholesale price.
  2. Extensive and indiscriminate; as, wholesale slaughter. "A time for wholesale trust." Mrs. Humphry Ward.

Webster 1913