warehouse

Etymology

From ware + house.

noun

1. A place for storing large amounts of products. In logistics, a place where products go to from the manufacturer before going to the retailer.
   Think of banking today and the image is of grey-suited men in towering skyscrapers. Its future, however, is being shaped in converted warehouses and funky offices in San Francisco, New York and London, where bright young things in jeans and T-shirts huddle around laptops, sipping lattes or munching on free food. 2013-08-03, “Revenge of the nerds”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847

verb

1. (transitive) To store in a warehouse or similar.
   Tobacco, for instance, shrinks materially by frequent reshippings, and as all goods are warehoused as a convenience to importers, duties should be paid on what the importer receives. 1894, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Finance, Opinions of Collectors of Customs Concerning Ad Valorem and Specific Rates of Duty on Imports
2. (transitive) To confine (a person) to an institution for a long period.
   When our elders presented school to us, they did not present it as a place of high learning, but as a means of escape from death and penal warehousing. 2015, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, page 26
   We nevertheless pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to process many of these children through the criminal justice system, and to warehouse them for years – and even more if they end up graduating to adult prisons, as most of them do. July 23 2020, Chris Daw, “'A stain on national life': why are we locking up so many children?'”, in The Guardian
3. (transitive, business) To acquire and then shelve, simply to prevent competitors from acquiring it.
   the warehousing of syndicated TV shows