shop

\ \ [13] The word shop had humble beginnings. It goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *skoppan, which denoted a small additional structure, such as a lean-to shed or a porch. There is one isolated example of an Old English descendant of this – sceoppa, which denoted a ‘treasury’ – but this does not appear to have survived. The modern English word was borrowed from Old French eschoppe ‘booth, stall’, which in turn had got it from Middle Low German schoppe. German dialect schopf ‘shed, shelter’ comes from the same source. The verb shop originated in the 16th century, in the sense ‘imprison’ (reflecting a now obsolete slang use of the noun shop for ‘prison’). This is the ancestor of modern British slang shop ‘inform against’. The sense ‘visit shops to buy things’ emerged in the mid 18th century.