grocery delivery
/ˈɡroʊ.sər.i dɪˈlɪv.ər.i/
Very CommonHaving groceries brought to your home through an app or service instead of shopping in person.
Can carry a slightly bougie or lazy connotation, though it has become mainstream enough that neither label is automatic.
Real-world examples4 examples
| # | Example | What it means | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | switched to grocery delivery and never looked back. the store was destroying my mental health | Stopped going to grocery stores and now exclusively uses delivery. | x, 2023 |
| 02 | grocery delivery markup is insane. paying $4 for a bag of apples that costs $1.50 in the store | Groceries through delivery apps often cost noticeably more than in-store prices. | tiktok, 2024 |
| 03 | my grocery delivery came and the shopper substituted everything. i ordered eggs and got a smoothie | Items were replaced with wrong or unrelated substitutes. | reddit, 2023 |
| 04 | grocery delivery really was the pandemic habit that stuck for me | Started using grocery delivery during lockdowns and never returned to in-store shopping. | x, 2023 |
Use it when
- Talking about ordering groceries through an app rather than going to the store.
- Posting about the cost or convenience tradeoff of having groceries delivered.
- Recommending a service or complaining about a bad experience with a delivery.
Do not use it when
- You specifically mean meal kits, which include recipes and pre-portioned ingredients.Use “meal kit” instead.
Grocery delivery vs meal kit
grocery delivery
Grocery delivery sends your regular grocery list to your door.
VS
meal-kit
Meal kit sends pre-portioned ingredients with a recipe for specific meals.
Origin and context
Grocery delivery services existed in the early 2000s but became mainstream after Instacart launched in 2012 and accelerated sharply during the 2020 pandemic when in-person shopping declined.
- First seen
- early-2000s
- Confidence
- high
Cite this page
Use this stable URL to reference the entry.
https://slang.fyi/grocery-deliveryUpdated: 2026-08-28License: CC BY 4.0