Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Definitions

vendor

[ven-der, ven-dawr] / ˈvɛn dər, vɛnˈdɔr /


Frequently Asked Questions

What is another word for vendor?
Vendor is a word for a person, company, or other entity that sells things. When it’s an individual person selling things from a stall in a street market, the term street vendor is often used. More old-fashioned words for a person who sells things on the street include peddler and hawker. Perhaps the closest synonym for vender is seller. It gets at exactly what a vendor does—sells things—and it can be used for both individuals and companies. Similar words include merchant and retailer. More specific words include dealer and supplier, which both are most often used in the context of businesses that sell to other businesses. (They’re sometimes also used in illegal contexts.)
What is a third party vendor?
The term third party vendor refers to a business that is authorized to provide goods or services to customers on the behalf of the main business. The term third party is used because the additional business is tangential to the transactional relationship between the primary business and the customer. Another word for third party vender is third party seller. For example, the retailer Amazon features many third party sellers, some of which you can also buy from directly without using Amazon’s fulfillment services.
How do you use vendor in a sentence?
The word vendor is a common word in the context of commerce involving all kinds of businesses. Here are some examples of vendors in a sentence:
  • The fair had hundreds of food vendors offering all kinds of delicious fried foods —it was heaven.
  • Vendors across the region have been seeing their sales increase by large margins.
  • We reached out to our vendors to inquire about the shipping delays.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Unlike in the past, the department would not run the rental operation, and the city is negotiating with a vendor interested in operating the service, Kim said.

From Los Angeles Times Aug. 13, 2026

Investors have been concerned about Workday’s monetization prospects and its ability to maintain subscription growth in the face of AI-native vendor competition and decreasing company headcounts.

From MarketWatch Aug. 13, 2026

Plus, they don’t want to risk it all with a single AI vendor, and feel the need to guard their intellectual property from those AI labs, Dekate said.

From The Wall Street Journal Aug. 12, 2026

Street vendor Maribel Verano, 46, is desperately searching for her missing mother and sister.

From Barron's Aug. 11, 2026

I blink at the mustachioed vendor, who stands with his palm outstretched.

From "The Brightwood Code" by Monica Hesse

Pereira's worst affected neighborhoods were also its most impoverished, with homeless people, Venezuelan migrants and street vendors in precarious situations bearing the brunt of the impact.

From Barron's Aug. 14, 2026

Businesses divided spending between internal efforts like hiring quantum talent and external efforts such as developing use cases with vendors and paying to experiment with quantum computers in the cloud.

From The Wall Street Journal Aug. 14, 2026

Beside vendors selling flags, university student Pirooz Mirzaie said the government has brought security, infrastructure projects and "plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs".

From Barron's Aug. 14, 2026

Big Issue vendors are struggling to sell magazines in the UK's extreme heat, which is having an "immediate" impact on their earnings, Big Issue's managing director says.

From BBC Aug. 13, 2026

To bathe, we put water in a bucket and splashed ourselves with it, using soap we bought from local vendors via the kids on bikes.

From "How Dare the Sun Rise" by Sandra Uwiringiyimana




Vocabulary lists containing vendor


Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 12,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training