Spicers

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Merchants or traders who buy, sell and supply spices, especially in earlier centuries
2. Dealers who trade in aromatic seasonings and pepper, historically a common kind of grocer
3. Those who sell or deal in spice, the flavourful plant products used to season food

Etymology: "Spicers" is the plural of "spicer", a noun for a dealer in seasonings. The word came into Middle English as "spicer" or "spycer", borrowed from Old French "espicier" (modern French "épicier"), which meant a grocer or spice merchant. That French word descends from Latin "speciarius", a dealer in spices, built from "species" in the sense of goods or merchandise, which is why the same root appears in the medieval trade vocabulary of spices, drugs and fine goods. The shape of the English word follows its ancestry closely: "spice" with the agent suffix "-er", meaning one who deals in or handles the thing named. Even the modern French "épicier" still means grocer, so the trade has kept its name across roughly two thousand years of Latin, French and English.

Synonyms: grocer, apothecary, spice merchant