People who own or work in shops, selling goods directly to customers from a store or small business.
Compound of 'shop' (from Dutch 'schop,' originally a shed or hut) and 'keeper' (from Old English 'cepan,' to keep or hold). The term emerged during the rise of retail commerce in the medieval period.
Shopkeepers were the original small business revolutionaries—they created the entire concept of retail, changing humans from producers who bartered to consumers who browsed and purchased for pleasure. This shift fundamentally rewired how societies work!
Historically, 'shopkeeper' defaulted to male (man as breadwinner, shop owner). Women shopkeepers were common but linguistically invisible or marked as 'shopkeeper's wife' rather than autonomous proprietors.
Use 'shopkeeper' without gendered assumption; when describing historical contexts, acknowledge that women ran shops but were often erased from records.
["merchant","proprietor","retailer"]
Women have been shopkeepers and merchants for centuries; linguistic erasure (via male-default 'shopkeeper') hid their economic agency and entrepreneurship.
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