trade
Pluraltrades (some meanings)
Pluraltrades (some meanings)
- 1The activity of buying and selling goods and services in a market.
Global trade slowed sharply during the economic downturn.
Coastal cities have long depended on trade for their prosperity.
UsageUsually no article: global trade, trade with China. Use in for goods: trade in oil, or the trade in oil when referring to particular commerce.
Similarcommerce
- 2To exchange something with someone, giving one thing and receiving another in return.
The players traded jerseys after the match.
Collectors often trade duplicates to complete their sets.
UsageUsually trade one thing for another, or trade things with someone: she traded stamps with him.
Note
Mutual exchange often turns hostile: rival schoolboys trade insults and punches, and warships trade fire. Often the same kind of thing passes both ways, though one thing can also be given for something quite different.
- 3To buy and sell goods or services, or to do business, especially as a living.
Local merchants trade in rare metals and minerals.
Small ships once traded along the entire coastline.
UsageUse in before the goods, or a direct object in markets: trade in furs, trade stocks; trade with a partner.
Similardeal
Note
John Arbuthnot (1727) describes a free port where warring nations "traded as in a neutral Country."
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- John Arbuthnot's cited work was published in 1727. wellcomecollection.org
- Arbuthnot describes a free port where warring nations traded, using the quoted wording. upload.wikimedia.org
- 4A skilled job, especially one involving manual or craft work, learned through training and practice.
She mastered the trade of cabinetmaking over many years.
Many young people now enter the building trades.
UsageCommon phrases include learn a trade and by trade: a carpenter by trade.
Similarcraft, occupation
Note
The craft as something a person learns and then carries. Paul Simon's "The Boxer" (1969) uses the word this way, describing its title figure as a man who fights for a living, with fighting as the craft he has learned.
- 5A single act of buying, selling, or exchanging something, such as shares, goods, or sports players.
The broker completed several trades before lunch.
His final trade of the day earned a small profit.
UsageA common phrase is make a trade: the broker made three trades before lunch.
Similartransaction, deal, exchange, swap
- 6The people and businesses involved in a particular industry or kind of skilled work.
The publishing trade has changed dramatically with digital media.
Suppliers across the trade reported rising costs this year.
UsageUsually with the: the book trade, sold to the trade only.
Note
Shops and suppliers draw a line between the public and the trade. A showroom that is "only for the trade" sells to people inside the business, not to retail customers walking in from the street.
- 7To be bought or sold at a particular price or under particular conditions.
Tech stocks trade at high valuations right now.
Gold traded near record highs throughout the year.
UsageAt gives the price and on gives the market: it trades at $200 on the NYSE.
Similarsell
Note
Market language in which the security becomes the subject: Apple is trading at $200, ExxonMobil trades on the NYSE.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- ExxonMobil shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange. investor.exxonmobil.com
Less common meanings
- 8With on or upon, to use or exploit something, such as a name, reputation, or image, to gain an advantage or benefit.
Some politicians trade on their war records to win votes.
The company traded on its founder's reputation to attract investors.
UsageOften sounds mildly critical, like exploit: she trades on her father's name.
- 9Publications written for people who work in a particular industry or group of industries, usually called the trades.
The studio's budget troubles were reported in the trades weeks before any newspaper picked up the story.
Before moving to a national paper, he spent ten years editing a trade that covers the trucking industry.
Similarjournal, periodical, magazine, publication
Note
News and rumors spread "all over the trades," meaning the publications a business reads about itself. These papers are written for the industry itself.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Trade publications are written for people working in the industry they cover. libguides.nypl.org
- 10A steady wind blowing from the east toward the equator, occurring on both sides of it.
The trade winds carried the fleet across the ocean in record time.
Mariners learned to navigate using the trades and the seasonal currents.
UsageUsually the trades or the trade winds: sail with the trades.
Note
Sailors shortened trade winds to the trades, and the plural is the usual form: you ride the trades, or find calms between the trades. James Horsburgh's India Directory also names one belt in the singular, the north-east trade.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Trade winds was shortened to trades in nautical use. dbnl.org
- James Horsburgh wrote India Directory. darwin-online.org.uk
- Horsburgh's India Directory uses the singular north-east trade for one wind belt. darwin-online.org.uk
- 11The custom or business that customers bring to a commercial establishment.
The pub built up a steady trade among local workers.
The new bypass took much of the village shop's trade away.
UsageCommon in do a roaring trade, meaning sell a lot, and lose trade to a rival.
Similarpatronage
Note
A British way of measuring how busy a business is. A shop or pub has trade much as it has customers. There may be considerable trade before noon, or a place can lose its trade to a new road or a rival. It counts the flow of custom rather than any single sale.
- 12To have dealings, or to be concerned or associated with another party.
After the scandal, few firms in town were willing to trade with him.
The village elders traded only with families they had known for generations.
Similardeal
Note
Dealings rather than commerce, and often dealings someone resents. Macbeth has the charge "how did you dare / To trade and traffic with Macbeth." The doublet trade and traffic stresses the contact itself, and with marks the other party.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Macbeth contains this quotation, spoken by Hecate to the witches in Act 3, scene 5. folger.edu
- 13A masculine man available for casual sex with other men, often for payment.
He went down to the harbor looking for trade.
The regulars knew the young sailor was trade, though he swore he only dated women.
UsageAlso in the compound rough trade.
Note
W. H. Auden, in "A Playboy of the Western World: St. Oscar, The Homintern Martyr" (1950), explains it as "sexually normal males": the straight-presenting man rather than another gay one.
- 14A course of action, custom, practice, or occupation; a settled way of conducting one's affairs.
Thy sin's not accidental but a trade.
c. 1603, William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”Long did I love this lady, / Long was my travel, long my trade to win her.
1655, Philip Massinger, John FletcherNote
The figurative step from a path to a habit: a trade was the course someone kept to. Shakespeare's Measure for Measure puts it sharply: "Thy sin's not accidental but a trade." The line means a settled practice, not a single lapse. Nicholas Udall's "right trade of religion" (1548) is a whole way of life. The sense bridges the obsolete "path" meaning and the modern sense of a calling.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- Trade historically had the related senses path, customary course of action, and occupation. gutenberg.org
- The quotation occurs in Shakespeare's Measure for Measure; Isabella says it to Claudio. folgerdigitaltexts.org
- Trade here denotes an established practice, and the historical sense also encompasses occupation. gutenberg.org
- The phrase right trade of religion is attributed to Udall and exemplifies a customary course or practice. gutenberg.org
- Udall's English Paraphrase was first published in 1548. en.wikipedia.org
- The historical sense connects a course of life or practice with a calling. gutenberg.org
- 15The tools or instruments used in carrying out a particular occupation.
His House and household Gods! his trade of War, / His Bow and Quiver; and his trusty Cur.
1697, John Dryden, “The Third Book of the Georgics”Note
Obsolete now, and easy to misread when it turns up. John Dryden's Virgil (1697) lists a man's whole kit: "his trade of War, / His Bow and Quiver; and his trusty Cur." There, trade of war means weapons, not soldiering. A modern reader tends to take such lines as naming the occupation, when they name the gear.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts
- John Dryden translated the works of Virgil into English verse. openbook.lib.utah.edu
- Dryden's translation of Virgil was first published in 1697. openbook.lib.utah.edu
- The quoted wording occurs in Dryden's translation of Georgics, Book III. en.wikisource.org
- The passage inventories a shepherd's possessions, and 'trade of war' refers to his weapons. gutenberg.org
- 16A track, trail, path, or passage along which one travels.
A postern with a blind wicket there was, / A common trade to pass through Priam's house
1557, Henry Howard, Earl of SurreyAs Shepheardes curre, that in darke eveninges shade / Hath tracted forth some salvage beastes trade
1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie QueeneNote
The meaning closest to the Germanic track behind the commercial sense. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, writes of "a common trade to pass through Priam's house." Spenser has a shepherd's dog track a wild beast's trade. In Richard II, Shakespeare's king asks to lie in "some way of common trade," where subjects' feet pass hourly. A common trade was a much-used way.
Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 6 facts
- The path sense preserves the meaning of the Germanic ancestor of commercial trade. en.wikipedia.org
- Henry Howard bore the title Earl of Surrey. en.wikipedia.org
- Surrey wrote the quoted line about passage through Priam's house. gutenberg.org
- Spenser describes a shepherd's dog tracking a wild beast's trail. gutenberg.org
- King Richard speaks the quoted words in Shakespeare's Richard II, imagining burial where subjects may tread hourly. folgerdigitaltexts.org
- Common trade denotes a frequented way in this passage. folgerdigitaltexts.org
- 17Short for trade paperback: a paperback in a larger, sturdier format, especially one collecting previously published comic issues.
- 18Produced for sale in the ordinary bulk retail trade and therefore of only the most basic quality.
- 19Waste material or refuse left over from a mine.
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Origin
'Trade' entered English from Middle English 'trade' ("path, course of conduct"), brought in by Hanseatic merchants, from Middle Low German 'trade' ("track, course") and Old Saxon 'trada' ("track"). It ultimately derives from Proto-Germanic *tradō ("track, way") and is cognate with Old English 'tredan' ("to tread"), from the Proto-Indo-European root *dreh₂- ("to tread, walk, step").
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- English trade comes through Middle English trade, meaning path or course of conduct, introduced by Hanseatic merchants, from Middle Low German trade, meaning track or course, and Old Saxon trada, meaning track. en.wikipedia.org
- The word derives ultimately from Proto-Germanic *tradō, meaning track or way. en.wiktionary.org
- Trade is cognate with Old English tredan, meaning to tread. en.wikipedia.org
- The reconstructed Proto-Germanic ancestor derives from Proto-Indo-European *dreh₂-, glossed as to tread, walk or step. en.wiktionary.org