English

Alternative forms

• stock in trade

Noun

stock-in-trade ‎(plural stocks in trade)

1. 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 […]

2. 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

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