Catalogue companies like Sears sold mail order house kits, making home ownership achievable even during the Depression.
Source: tatoeba (8071415)
Ranked by relevance and common usage.
Keep "sears" when the sentence already sounds natural, when a synonym would add unintended emphasis, or when readers need the most familiar wording. A synonym should clarify or sharpen the message, not simply make the sentence look more varied.
If two options seem close, choose the one that best matches the audience and purpose of the sentence.
Choose a synonym only if it keeps the core idea of "sears" intact in the sentence you are editing.
Check whether the replacement sounds more formal, casual, emotional, technical, or forceful than the original word.
Read the full sentence after the swap. Keep the synonym only when the sentence becomes clearer or more precise.
Review note: Synonym lists are ranked with lexical data and reviewed for practical writing value. Use the comparison notes, sentence evidence, and source labels together; a high-ranking synonym can still be wrong when the audience, register, or grammar changes.
After choosing a replacement for "sears", read the sentence once for meaning and once for rhythm. The best synonym should feel natural in the full sentence, not only accurate in a word list.
If the synonym makes the sentence slower, vaguer, or more dramatic than intended, keep "sears" or choose a simpler alternative from the closest-match group.
OpenGloss and ConceptNet supply richer edges like generalizations, collocations, and derivations.
3 total sentences available.
Catalogue companies like Sears sold mail order house kits, making home ownership achievable even during the Depression.
Source: tatoeba (8071415)
Sears let customers buy on credit, which gave African Americans the option to bypass the local country store, where black customers had to wait until the white customers were served.
Source: tatoeba (8229747)
Before plumbing came to the farm, this small building served as the site's toilet. It is a reconstruction—the original was torn down. This outhouse features a seat with two holes. This was not unusual as many outhouses had different sized holes for adults and children. There are also some pages from an old Sears and Roebuck Catalog in the structure. Farmers wouldn't waste money on purchasing toilet paper when they could recycle something they no longer needed!
Source: tatoeba (12194027)
Closest matches include brown, burn, char, department store, engrave.
Compare the replacement against real sentence context. This entry includes sample sentences so you can check tone, grammar, and meaning before swapping words.