Groceries are the everyday goods — overwhelmingly food, plus household essentials — sold in a grocer’s shop or supermarket. The word evokes the weekly shop: bread, milk, eggs, fruit and vegetables, tinned goods, tea, cleaning products — the staples that keep a household running. Historically the grocer sold dry goods (the name derives from “grosser,” a wholesaler) while separate trades handled meat, fish, and bread; the supermarket merged them all under one roof. “Doing the groceries” remains the universal chore, now extended to online delivery. Economists track grocery prices as a sensitive barometer of the cost of living — few figures bite like the rising cost of the weekly shop.