stock-in-trade

See also: stock in trade

English

stock-in-trade (plural stocks in trade)

Merchandise and other necessary supplies kept on hand in order to do business.
- 1848, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, chapter 4
  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.
- 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia, Chapter VIII, p. 122,
  […] 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 […]
- 1962 October, M. J. Wilson, “Three years of dieselisation at Devons Road depot”, in Modern Railways, page 266:
  Devons Road has had its teething troubles as a dieselised depot, just as have the diesel locomotives which are its stock-in-trade.
A technique, skill or ability habitually used by a person, group of persons, or an organization, often in the course of their business.
- 1890, Nellie Bly, Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, chapter 1
  Ideas are the chief stock-in-trade of newspaper writers and generally they are the scarcest stock in market, but they do come occasionally

merchandise and other necessary supplies for business

“stock-in-trade”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.