pet shop

plural pet shops · alternative petshop · alternative pet-shop

1. A shop that sells animals kept as domestic pets, and products for caring for and feeding them.First known use 1927

   […] Mr. Wilham's fashionable West End pet-shop, where dogs lived in excelsior-floored cubicles, appealing to the passers-by.

   1932, Rudyard Kipling, “The Woman in His Life”, in Limits and Renewals, Dominions edition, London: Macmillan and Co., […], →OCLC, page 47

   5 more examples

   "I'll take three of those little butter-fishes." No sooner was the sentence spoken than I realized that it was not correct English, but the fish dealer knew not the difference; and if one were to say to the proprietor of a pet shop, "I'll take three of those goldfish," he, in all likelihood, would not know the difference, either. Even those of us who are devoting our lives to the study of fishes, find it difficult to remember how to designate them correctly in the plural.

   1927, Ida M[ay] Mellen, “'Fish' or 'Fishes'”, in Louise Pound, Kemp Malone, Arthur [Garfield] Kennedy, editors, American Speech, volume II, Baltimore, Md.: American Dialect Society, →ISSN, page 246, column 1

   And he stops in front of the store where they're going and she stares at the window uncomfortably, it turns out to be a petshop that only sells birds, marvelous, in cages you can see from the window there are all kinds of birds happily flying from one perch to another, […]

   1980 August, Manuel Puig, chapter 1, in Thomas Colchie, transl., Kiss of the Spider Woman […], New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, →ISBN, page 8

   Although Lesbia's sparrow and Melior's parrot do indeed bear witness to at least an occasional Roman weakness for pet birds, it does seem unlikely that these pampered fowls will have drunk from the very same type of vessel as might be sold in the petshops of modern Pompeii.

   1999, Eleanor Leach, “Discussion: Comments from a Classicist”, in Penelope M[ary] Allison, editor, The Archaeology of Household Activities, London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 193

   ‘Your kiwi birds will take lodgings elsewhere.’ / ‘At your house?’ / ‘Not at my house, but across the street.’ Mr Bell pointed and Alice followed the direction of this pointing. / ‘It is a pet shop,’ she said. ‘I have no wish to sell my kiwi birds.’ And this was mostly true, although Alice was beginning to find caring for the kiwi birds a trying experience. Not that she did not love them.

   2011, Robert Rankin, chapter 26, in The Mechanical Messiah and Other Marvels of the Modern Age, London: Gollancz, →ISBN, page 205

   One day, a lady named Sally came to the pet shop to look for a new pet. Sally did not really want a parrot, but Parker thought Sally looked kind so he flew onto her shoulder and said, "Choose me, please." Sally was amazed and decided to take Parker home.

   2012, Brenda May Williams, “Parker the Nosey Parrot”, in The Unusual Pet Shop, Houston, Tex.: Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co., →ISBN, page 6

   Synonyms: pet store

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see pet (adjective), shop: (dated) A favourite or cherished shop.

   In two or three days all my pet shops will be having sales, and I shall have the cruel mortification of seeing not only the Christmas presents I have sent, but the Christmas presents I have received written down too and undergoing the humiliation of the sale price.

   1900 January 6, Black and White: A Weekly Illustrated Record and Review, volume XIX, London: Black and White Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 32

   5 more examples

   He knew, though Morty did not, what operas she preferred,—whose pictures attracted her to linger near them at the Exhibition,—the favourite passages of her favourite writers,—the pet shops she frequented,—the promenades she liked best,—and, above all, the negative or positive attraction of the various members of her set.

   1846, [Catherine] Gore, chapter II, in The Débutante; or, The London Season. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […] , →OCLC, page 36

   And I got hold of the box with all the messes she dabs on her face, her eyebrows, her teeth, her false front, the most extraordinary things. I stuck them all on. The eyebrows would not go straight, and the front kept slipping down my forehead; still, the general effect, the tout ensemble, was lovely. It seemed a pity to waste it, so out I pranced, up Sloane Street, ordered a few little odds and ends in her name at all her pet shops; […]

   1895 April, Mrs. Conney, “An Old Maid’s Mistake”, in Belgravia: A London Magazine, volume LXXXVI, London: F[rederick] V[ernon] White & Co., […], →OCLC, chapter XI, page 339

   "Have you seen the ball-gowns at Kate Reily's?" asks Lady Augustina. "No, but I have bought four tailor-mades at So-and-So's," replies Lady Constantina in a delightful Ollendorfian^([sic]) irrelevancy, after which Mrs. Greygreen descants on the absurdly cheap silks at Peter Robinson's, while Mrs. Greengrey dilates on the curtains that are going a-begging at Maple's. It is all true, every word of it, and these beneficiaries of the different sales will defend their pet shops with the chattering ardour of jackdaws.

   1902 January 15, The Sketch, volume XXXVI, London: Illustrated London News & Sketch, →OCLC, page 513

   I shan't take a list and go around trying to fit presents into people. I shall first circle around to all my pet shops, see what is to be had. Then I shall make a return trip and select the number I want. And lastly, when everything has come home I shall sort them out and apportion them. Making Christmas presents 'fit' is such a lottery anyway that it's like what Bernard Shaw says of marriage in 'Misalliance.'

   1917 December, Anne Archbald, “Angelina and Toto Go Christmas Shopping”, in Arthur Hornblow, editor, The Theatre, volume XXVI, number 202, New York, N.Y.: The Theatre Magazine Company, →OCLC, page 378

   "[…] Did Sylvana offer to take you shopping tomorrow?" / "No." / "She's a selfish little brute. If you'd been young and glamorous, she would have taken you around to all her pet shops and made them look after you—but she's not interested in women over forty. Except me, of course; she keeps her eye on me because she's afraid of me. I tell you what: I'll take you shopping tomorrow."

   1957, Elizabeth Cadell, chapter 4, in Shadows on the Water, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, published 1958, →LCCN, page 96