Definition of "mom-and-pop" []

• Of or being a small business that is typically owned and run by members of a family: a mom-and-pop grocery store. (adjective)
• Resembling or evocative of the small-scale, homelike, or informal atmosphere of such a business: "toasted the advantages of mom-and-pop journalism” ( Newsweek). (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Apparently Occupy Wall Street protesters around the country are planning protests at big box stores and other national retailers in order to either A) help spur on the imminent downfall of capitalism or B) protest consumerism in a materialist world or C) divert shoppers away from their shopping location of choice and toward so-called mom-and-pop shops."
• "It created a market for stock funds in Korea--changing the way mom-and-pop investors thought about stocks--where before all the action was in bond funds."
• "Chong Sik Lee, president of The Korean-American Grocers Association of New York, tells the Times that his membership has decreased by half from a decade ago and that "In 10 years, there will be no more Korean mom-and-pop stores.""