stock-in-trade

plural stocks in trade · alternative stock and trade · alternative stock in trade

1. uncountableusuallyMerchandise and other necessary supplies kept on hand in order to conduct business.

   Devons Road has had its teething troubles as a dieselised depot, just as have the diesel locomotives which are its stock-in-trade.

   1962 October, M. J. Wilson, “Three years of dieselisation at Devons Road depot”, in Modern Railways, page 266

   2 more examples

   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

   […] Oscar was in the midst of drafting an account of Red Ochre's stock-in-trade for presenting to a man named Burywell who was contemplating taking on the lease […]

   1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter VIII, in Capricornia, page 122

2. uncountableusuallyA 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 occasionally

   1890, Nellie Bly, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, chapter 1