Wholesale means selling goods in large quantities, usually to stores or businesses rather than directly to individual customers. A wholesale bakery might sell hundreds of loaves of bread at once to grocery stores, which then sell individual loaves to shoppers. The wholesale price is usually lower than the retail price because buyers purchase in bulk.

Think of it this way: a toy manufacturer sells action figures wholesale to toy stores for $5 each, but only if the store buys at least 100 figures. The toy store then sells each figure to kids for $12, making a profit on each sale. The $5 is the wholesale price, while the $12 is the retail price.

The word also means doing something on a large scale or completely. If a teacher decides to change her classroom rules wholesale, she's making a complete overhaul of the entire system. When a city council rejects a proposal wholesale, they're dismissing the whole thing, every part of it.

Understanding wholesale helps explain how businesses work: products move from manufacturers to wholesalers to retailers to customers, with each step adding cost. That's why cutting out the middleman and buying wholesale can save money, though you usually have to buy far more than you need.