English · Word Candidate

vendor

/ˈvɛn.də/

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Also seen as: vendors · vendoring · vendored

Sense 1

Meaning · English

A person or a company that vends or sells.

Noun

Examples

[…] Tanee was accosted by certain good fellows, friends and boon companions, who condoled with him on his misfortunes—railed against the queen, and finally dragged him away to an illicit vender of spirits, in whose house the party got gloriously mellow.

Usage example from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-08-01)

Sources & notes

Adapted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-08-01 via kaikki.org).

Sense 2

Meaning · English

A vending machine.

Noun

Examples

She left her duties guarding the cola vendor and brushed past Earl to the aisle with the creamed corn.

Usage example from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-08-01)

Sources & notes

Adapted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-08-01 via kaikki.org).

Sense 3

Meaning · English

To bundle third-party dependencies with the source code for one's own program.

Verb

Examples

I distributed my application with a vendored copy of Perl so that it wouldn't use the system copies of Perl where it is installed.

Usage example from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-08-01)

Sources & notes

Adapted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-08-01 via kaikki.org).

Sense 4

Meaning · English

As the software vendor, to bundle one's own, possibly modified version of dependencies with a standard program.

Verb

Examples

Strawberry Perl contains vendored copies of some CPAN modules, designed to allow them to run on Windows.

Usage example from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-08-01)

Sources & notes

Adapted from English Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-08-01 via kaikki.org).

Common questions

What does “vendor” mean?

A person or a company that vends or sells.

Is “vendor” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.