commodity
Pluralcommodities
- 1Any movable good that can be bought and sold.
Wheat is treated as a commodity, bought and sold in huge quantities.
Traders move commodities like oil and metal between distant markets.
Note
In the social sciences the word carries an argument. Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation (1944) defines commodities as objects produced for sale on the market, then turns to labor and land. James G. Carrier sets anonymous commodities against possessions, which are what shopping turns them into. Geographers stretch the term further: Rachel Pain notes that it usually covers services as well as goods.
- 2Raw materials and primary agricultural products bought and sold in bulk on specialized exchanges.
Copper is a commodity whose price swings with global demand.
Traders on the exchange buy and sell agricultural commodities like soybeans and sugar.
Note
Economists and traders narrow the word here to bulk primary goods (crude oil, copper, grain) whose prices are set on dedicated exchanges. Standardized contracts let buyers and sellers deal without inspecting individual lots. The plural often stands before another noun: a commodities exchange, commodities trading. Where any traded good can be a car or a coat, this sense covers only raw materials and farm produce.
- 3A largely interchangeable good with a low profit margin, distinguished from branded products that aren't fully interchangeable.
Once a smartphone feature becomes standard, it turns into a commodity.
Manufacturers fear that their gadgets will become mere commodities competing only on price.
Note
A marketer's word, and rarely a compliment. Products become commodities when buyers stop caring who made them. The typical construction tells a story of decline: calculators, once at the forefront of consumer electronics, "have become a mere commodity." The opposite is the branded product, which keeps its margin because it cannot be fully swapped for a rival's.
- 4Something regarded as useful or valuable.
Like a scarce resource everyone wishes they had more of.
In modern politics, public trust is a valuable commodity.
Time becomes the most precious commodity when deadlines loom.
Note
Applied to qualities rather than goods: patience, time, trust. The word almost always comes with an evaluating adjective, as in "that most precious commodity," and the effect is to put a price on something that cannot be bought. Speakers often reach for it to lament a shortage, as when a football manager mourns the patience club boards seem to have lost.
- 5Anything possessing both a use value and an exchange value.
Like a coat that keeps you warm but could also be sold.
For an economist, a commodity must be both usable and exchangeable.
Each commodity carries a use value for the consumer and an exchange value in the market.
Note
A term of art in Marxist economics, where the point is the double character. A thing must both satisfy a want and command other things in exchange. Use value alone does not make a commodity, and neither does exchange value alone. Where the everyday commercial sense simply means something for sale, this one is a tool for analyzing how value arises.
Less common meanings
- 6Convenience; usefulness or suitability for a purpose.
The merchant valued the commodity of a sheltered port above all else.
She chose the dwelling for its commodity, finding every room close at hand.
Note
Long out of use, the meaning of "convenience" survives only in early modern English, before the word narrowed to trade. There, the commodity of a house or a harbor meant how well it served its purpose. Modern writers who want this idea use convenience or suitability. Used today, commodity would be read as a term of commerce.
- 7Personal advantage or self-interest; one's own profit or convenience as a motive.
The courtier pursued his own commodity at every turn, indifferent to others.
They accused the magistrate of ruling for private commodity rather than justice.
Note
Self-interest with a moral edge: Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy complains that "commodity is the steer of all their action." It turns the old sense of convenience inward, toward one's own convenience, and it appears in writing that sets private gain against duty or the common good. It is equally obsolete, met in early modern prose such as John Florio's Montaigne of 1603.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English commoditee, from Anglo-Norman commoditee, which came from Latin commoditās.