wholesale

Etymology

From whole + sale.

noun

1. (business) The sale of products, often in large quantities, to retailers or other merchants.

adj

1. Of or relating to sale in large quantities, for resale.
2. (figurative) Extensive, indiscriminate, all-encompassing; blanket.
   The bombing resulted in wholesale destruction.
   But beyond these cut-offs, to avoid the wholesale alteration of all mileposting and mileages—of bridges and culverts, for example—the original mileposts have remained unaltered. 1946 July and August, “Mileposts and their Peculiarities”, in Railway Magazine, page 217
   By wholesale omission of connections and by the use of a microscopic scale of photographic reproduction which makes some of the most important tables difficult to read, the size has been cut down from last winter's 580 to 520 pages only. 1961 October, “The winter timetables of British Railways: London Midland Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 593
   With financial losses emerging in 1957, the BTC abandoned the diesel pilot scheme in favour of wholesale orders for untried designs. March 8 2023, David Clough, “The long road that led to Beeching”, in RAIL, number 978, page 43

adv

1. In bulk or large quantity.
2. (figurative) Indiscriminately.

verb

1. To sell at wholesale.