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

Silicon Valley’s bet that billions of agents will be out ordering food, booking travel, and filling up their humans’ shopping carts is running into an (admittedly early) reality check. — Jake Angelo, semafor.com, 10 Nov. 2026

The first step is logging into your Beauty Insider account and adding coupon-eligible items to your online shopping cart. — Katie Decker-Jacoby, StyleCaster, 6 Nov. 2026

Some of our favorite brands are already rolling out discounts on living room furniture, bedroom sets, and statement pieces that have absolutely no business being in our shopping cart but somehow end up there anyway. — Audrey Lee, Architectural Digest, 4 Nov. 2026

Meta claims Muse can do things like build a shopping cart based on a recipe on Instagram, create workout plans and plan family trivia nights. — Lisa Eadicicco, CNN Money, 4 Nov. 2026

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