commerce
Verbcommerces, commercing, commerced
Formscommerces, commercing, commerced
- 1The buying and selling of goods on a large scale, especially trade in merchandise between different places or communities.
Like the bloodstream of an economy, carrying goods from where they are made to where they are needed.
The city grew rich on commerce flowing through its harbor.
Global commerce depends on reliable shipping routes and stable currencies.
Similartrade, business, trading, exchange, traffic
Note
Trade seen as a whole system rather than a single sale: goods moving between places, communities and markets. English borrowed it from Middle French commerce, from Latin commercium, and the rare word comess is a doublet from the same source. In business prose it works as a mass noun (global commerce, the commerce of a port), and it can also be counted, with the plural commerces.
- 2Social dealings between people or groups; the exchange of conversation and familiarity in society.
Years of friendly commerce between the two families created lasting bonds.
Her letters reveal the rich commerce of ideas among the writers of her circle.
Similarintercourse, exchange, dealings, relations, communication
Note
Here the exchange is between people rather than goods, and the word often takes with. Macaulay writes of Bunyan's "commerce with the world," and Stevenson imagines the tone-deaf "cut off from all near commerce." Walter Montagu, in 1648, can even count it: "perillous commerces of our love." The voice is literary, and the meaning is familiar dealings and acquaintance, not buying and selling.
- 3To carry on trade; to traffic in goods with others.
Foreign vessels came to commerce with the colony each spring.
The two cities commerced peacefully for generations.
Note
Trading as something a person does, in a verb Ben Jonson could use in 1599: "beware you commerce not with bankrupts." It is intransitive, so the trading partner follows with, and it inflects regularly as commerces, commercing and commerced. Modern English says trade or do business instead. Use the verb only when you want an archaic or period flavor.
- 4A French card game of the 18th century in which players exchange or trade cards.
The guests gathered around the table for a few rounds of commerce.
He lost a week's wages at commerce in a Paris gambling house.
Note
A card game named after the trading sense: play turns on swapping, bartering and trading cards, so the table becomes a small market. Like other game names, it is used without an article. You play commerce, or sit down to a few rounds of commerce.
Less common meanings
- 5To hold conversation; to communicate and exchange ideas with another.
Scholars would commerce freely about new ideas in the evening salons.
He commerced with strangers as easily as with old friends.
Note
Talk treated as a kind of exchange, the verb partner of the social noun. What it reaches toward can be unusual: Tennyson's recluse is "commercing with himself," and John Wilson's musicians teach people "to commerce with heaven." That inward, devotional reach is what sets it apart. Like the trading verb it takes with, and it reads as archaic today.
- 6A discreet, indirect word for sexual intercourse between people.
The diary alludes discreetly to commerce between the master and a servant.
He was accused of unlawful commerce with another man's wife.
Note
An obsolete polite cover word, best recognized in the phrase carnal commerce, where the adjective makes plain what the noun alone only hints at. Without such a signal, a modern reader will take commerce as trade or as social dealings. It is therefore a sense for reading older texts, not one to use in new writing.
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Practice
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Origin
Borrowed from Middle French commerce, which came from Latin commercium. It is a doublet of comess.