vendor

vendor — noun

1. a person or company that sells goods, services, or property — for example, someo

1.nounB1
Definition

a person or company that sells goods, services, or property — for example, someone selling fruit at a market stall, a firm selling software to businesses, or a homeowner selling their house to a buyer.

Example

A food vendor at the night market sold Shanti a bowl of spicy noodle soup.

collocation: 'food vendor' for sellers of prepared food

Diya bought a bunch of sunflowers from a street vendor outside the train station.

collocation: 'street vendor' for public, open-air sellers

Common collocations
  • street vendor
  • food vendor
  • market vendor
  • software vendor
  • authorised vendor
  • vendor's stall
  • vendor's stand
  • vendor sells
  • vendor offers
  • vendor of [property]
Synonyms
  • seller

    general term; less specific to formal/commercial contexts

  • supplier

    focuses on providing goods regularly to businesses rather than selling to end customers

  • merchant

    more formal; often implies a shop or established business, not a temporary stall

  • retailer

    specifically a business that sells to the general public, not an individual street seller

Antonyms
  • buyer

    the person or organisation that purchases from the vendor

  • customer

    the person who buys goods or services from the vendor

Usage Note

Vendor can refer to individual sellers (a street vendor, a market vendor) and to companies (a software vendor, an authorised vendor). In British English, vendor is the standard term for the person selling a house or apartment in a property transaction.

Common Mistakes

I bought vegetables from a street seller.
I bought vegetables from a street vendor.
Both are grammatically correct, but 'street vendor' is the natural collocation in English for open-air sellers.

Word family

  • vend
    verbC1
  • vending
    nounC1
  • vendors
    noun (plural)B1

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Vendor is the most versatile of these four words, covering both individuals and companies that sell. Seller is the plainest and most general — any person or business that completes a sale is a seller, but it lacks the commercial formality of vendor. Supplier is narrower: it refers to businesses that provide goods or materials to other businesses on an ongoing basis (a restaurant's food supplier), not to a one-off street seller. Merchant has an old-fashioned or formal feel, usually implying an established shop or trading business rather than a temporary stall. Retailer is a business-to-consumer term — a shop or online store that sells to the public, never used for an individual hawking goods on the street. If you are buying fruit from a stall, call the person a vendor, not a retailer. If you are negotiating a house purchase, the owner is the vendor. If your office orders printer paper, the vendor is your regular supplier.

seller ↗supplier ↗merchant ↗retailer ↗

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • authorised vendor
  • independent vendor
  • local vendor
  • registered vendor

Prepositions

  • from a vendor
  • vendor of [something]

Etymology

LatinAnglo-FrenchEnglish

Vendor came into English from Anglo-French 'vendour', which came from Latin 'vendere' (to sell). The Latin word itself was a blend of 'venum' (sale) and 'dare' (to give), literally meaning 'to give for sale'. It has been used in English since the 1500s, first appearing in legal and commercial documents before becoming an everyday word for anyone selling something.