merchanting
- 1Present participle of merchant.
The firm built its fortune merchanting timber between the colonies and Europe.
Merchanting raw cotton required a deep knowledge of distant markets.
Note
The -ing form of a verb with an unusually exact meaning: a trader based in one region buys goods from an outsider and sells them on to another outsider, so the goods pass through their hands without being sold at home. The same spelling does double duty, as a participle after be (the firm was merchanting grain) and as a gerund naming the trade itself (merchanting is a risky business).
merchanting is a form of merchant
merchant, verb: Living in a region, to buy goods from a non-resident and resell them to another non-resident. Full entry
- Forms
- merchantmerchants he/she/itmerchanting -ing formmerchanted past tense, past participle
- Spelling
- merchant → merchanting: add -ing
Use it in a sentence
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