Learn English – Is “goods” countable

uncountable-nounsword-usage

I am referring to goods as in services and goods provided. I came across this definition (emphasis mine):

tender document:

A written invitation sent to potential suppliers of a good or service to inform them about the information required for the buyer to choose among them. Issuing a tender document typically begins the tender process by which a business selects qualified and interested suppliers based on such things as their price, availability and proposed delivery terms.

The use of good as a countable noun seems wrong to me. Is good used correctly here, is it a countable noun? Can one provide a good?

EDIT: Google returns 9,790,000 hits for "suppliers of a good". Does that mean I have to accept it as "correct"? Does no one else feel it is wrong?

Best Answer

OED has

C. noun
III. A particular thing that is good.
7. Property or possessions; now in more restricted sense, movable property.
a.
(a) plural
(b) The plural form occurs as a sing.: Property, an amount of property. (Cf. sense C. 7d)

So yes, the plural form can occur as a singular, and mean a certain amount of property; a thing. In my experience it's restricted to legal wording where goods may either have its customary meaning of "movable property" as what is almost a mass noun or mean two or more singular goods [consider the phrase goods and services in the context of your quote]. Consequently the word good is used to mean "a thing" as a single entity and remove that ambiguity.

I would certainly not recommend using the singular good in normal use!

Just for the record, sense C. 7d is related, but now obsolete:

†d. singular Money. (a) great good : a great sum of money. marriage good: a marriage portion. Obs.

marriage portion n. a portion or dowry given to a bride at the time of her marriage.

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