shopping cart

noun

1

: a metal or plastic cart with four small wheels that is used for holding merchandise when shopping (as at a supermarket or department store)

… about the only amenities besides the jumbo-sized shopping carts are a few flatbed dollies to allow shoppers to get large appliances like refrigerators and washing machines to the cash register and then out to the parking lot.

—Jean Crichton

2

: a temporary record of items selected for eventual purchase from an online vendor's website

To set up shop on the Internet, you need a commerce-enabled Web site, which includes the electronic shopping cart; a connection to the credit card network; and finally, a merchant account …

—Tom Negrino

Delivery charges are the No. 1 reason shoppers abandon a virtual shopping cart, according to Jupiter Media Metrix. Every Internet shopper has a shipping-charge horror story.

—Ellen Neuborn

Examples of shopping cart in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Similar groups in Sweden and Denmark have each gathered about 80,000 followers sharing strategies to purge American products from their shopping carts. —Jackie Snow, Quartz, 7 Apr. 2025

At its stores, the company deploys smart shopping carts equipped with card scanners and barcode readers, allowing customers to skip the checkout line. —Zinnia Lee, Forbes, 6 Mar. 2025

Even with the temporary pause, many items in our shopping carts are still vulnerable if tariffs return—or if trade tensions escalate. —Stephanie Gravalese, Forbes.com, 10 Apr. 2025

But avocados are already one of the pricier produce items in our shopping carts. —Tom Gavin, EverydayHealth.com, 9 Apr. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1934, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for shopping cart

• counterpart
• apart
• depart
• flowchart
• forepart
• impart
• pushcart
• rampart
• redstart
• restart
• subpart
• sweetheart