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

Then yogurt showed up, Greek yogurt followed and cottage cheese quietly disappeared from most shopping carts. — Ryan Brennan, Kansas City Star, 22 Sep. 2026

The study, published in the Journal of Business Research, looked at how digital shopping carts were associated with spending and shopping behavior. — Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 8 Sep. 2026

Additional wire was located in a shopping cart near an unsecured mall entrance. — Vince Basada, Sacbee.com, 5 Sep. 2026

Just over four months later, Google introduced Universal Cart, an intelligent shopping cart that allows consumers to add products from different retailers and purchase them through a single checkout. — Paulina Likos, CNBC, 4 Sep. 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