purchase

From Middle English purchasen, from Anglo-Norman purchacer (“seek to obtain”) from pur- (from Latin pro-) + chac(i)er (“to chase, pursue”). Compare Old French porchacier (“to follow, to chase”), which has given French pourchasser (“to chase without relent”).

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpɝtʃəs/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpɜːtʃəs/
• Hyphenation: pur‧chase

• Audio (US)

  (file)

purchase (countable and uncountable, plural purchases)

1. The acquisition of title to, or property in, anything for a price; buying for money or its equivalent.

   They offer a free hamburger with the purchase of a drink.

2. That which is obtained, got or acquired, in any manner, honestly or dishonestly; property; possession; acquisition.
3. That which is obtained for a price in money or its equivalent.

   He was pleased with his latest purchase.

4. (obsolete) The act or process of seeking and obtaining something (e.g. property, etc.)
   • (Can we date this quote by Beaumont and Fletcher as well as title, page, and other details?)

     I'll […] get meat to have thee, / Or lose my life in the purchase.

5. (uncountable, also figuratively) Any mechanical hold or advantage, applied to the raising or removing of heavy bodies, as by a lever, a tackle or capstan.

   Synonyms: contact, grip, hold

   • 2009, Mark Fisher, chapter 8, in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, Zero Books, →ISBN, pages 66-67:

     The problem is that the model of individual responsibility assumed by most versions of ethics have little purchase on the behavior of Capital or corporations.

   It is hard to get purchase on a nail without a pry bar or hammer.

6. The apparatus, tackle or device by which such mechanical advantage is gained and in nautical terminology the ratio of such a device, like a pulley, or block and tackle.
7. (rock climbing, uncountable) The amount of hold one has from an individual foothold or ledge.

   Synonyms: foothold, support

   • 2015, Hao Jingfang, “Folding Beijing”, in Ken Liu, transl., Uncanny Magazine‎, number 2:

     At first, he was climbing down, testing for purchase with his feet. But soon, as the entire section of ground rotated, he was lifted into the air, and up and down flipped around.

8. (law, dated) Acquisition of lands or tenements by means other than descent or inheritance, namely, by one's own act or agreement.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Blackstone to this entry?)

9. A price paid for a house or estate, etc. equal to the amount of the rent or income during the stated number of years.
   • 1848, The Sessional Papers printed by order of the House of Lords

     Suppose a freehold house to be worth 20 years' purchase […]

• purchase order
• repurchase

purchase (third-person singular simple present purchases, present participle purchasing, simple past and past participle purchased)

1. To buy, obtain by payment of a price in money or its equivalent.

   to purchase land, to purchase a house

2. To pursue and obtain; to acquire by seeking; to gain, obtain, or acquire.
   • Spenser

     that loves the thing he cannot purchase

   • Shakespeare

     Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so removed a dwelling.

   • Shakespeare

     His faults […] hereditary / Rather than purchased.

3. To obtain by any outlay, as of labor, danger, or sacrifice, etc.

   to purchase favor with flattery

   • Shakespeare

     One poor retiring minute […] / Would purchase thee a thousand thousand friends.

4. To expiate by a fine or forfeit.
   • Shakespeare

     Not tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses.

5. To apply to (anything) a device for obtaining a mechanical advantage; to get a purchase upon, or apply a purchase to; to raise or move by mechanical means.

   to purchase a cannon

6. To put forth effort to obtain anything; to strive; to exert oneself.
   • Ld. Berners

     Duke John of Brabant purchased greatly that the Earl of Flanders should have his daughter in marriage.

7. To constitute the buying power for a purchase, have a trading value.

   Many aristocratic refugees' portable treasures purchased their safe passage and comfortable exile during the revolution

• (buy): procure

• purchasable
• purchasing agent
• purchasing power