commerce

Borrowed from Middle French commerce, from Latin commercium. Doublet of comess.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒm.əs/, (verb, dated) /kəˈmɜːs/

  • Audio (UK):

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  • Audio (Southern England):

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• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑ.mɚs/, (verb, dated) /kəˈmɝs/

  • Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: (Received Pronunciation) -ɒməs, (Received Pronunciation, dated) -ɜːs

commerce (countable and uncountable, plural commerces)

1. (business) The exchange or buying and selling of commodities; especially the exchange of merchandise, on a large scale, between different places or communities; extended trade or traffic.
2. Social intercourse; the dealings of one person or class in society with another; familiarity.
   • 1648, Walter Montagu, “The Thirteenth Treatise. Handling whether to be in Love, and to be Devout, are Inconsistent. §. VIII. The Conclusion Framed upon All the Premised Discourse, and Our Love Safely Addressed.”, in Miscellanea Spiritualia: Or, Devout Essaies, London: […] W[illiam] Lee, D[aniel] Pakeman, and G[abriel] Bedell, […], →OCLC, page 179:

     [A]ll libertine diſcourſe, and familiarities vvith vvomen, […] nay even friendſhip it ſelfe […] muſt be vvatched vvith great prudence to be kept ſafe: for vvhich cauſe in ſtead of all theſe perillous commerces of our love, I vvill preferre ſo ſecure an object to it, […]

   • 1911, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Bunyan, John”, in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica‎^[1]:

     Fifteen years of thought, observation, and commerce with the world had made him [Bunyan] wiser.

   • 1874–1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers, London: C[harles] Kegan Paul & Co., […], published 1881, →OCLC:

     Suppose we held our converse not in words, but in music; those who have a bad ear would find themselves cut off from all near commerce, and no better than foreigners in this big world.

3. (obsolete) Sexual intercourse.

   carnal commerce

4. (card games) An 18th-century French card game in which the cards are subject to exchange, barter, or trade.^[1]

• trade, traffic, dealings, intercourse, interchange, communion, communication
• See also Thesaurus:copulation

commerce (third-person singular simple present commerces, present participle commercing, simple past and past participle commerced)

1. (intransitive, archaic) To carry on trade; to traffic.
   • 1599 (first performance), B. I. [i.e., Ben Jonson], The Comicall Satyre of Euery Man out of His Humor. […], London: […] [Adam Islip] for William Holme, […], published 1600, →OCLC, Act I, scene ii, signature [C iiij], verso:

     [A]lwaies beware you commerce not with bankrupts, […]

2. (intransitive, archaic) To hold conversation; to communicate.
   • 1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Walking to the Mail”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 48:

     No, sir, he, / Vex'd with a morbid devil in his blood / That veil'd the world with jaundice, hid his face / From all men, and commercing with himself, / He lost the sense that handles daily life— […]

   • 1844, John Wilson, Essay on the Genius, and Character of Burns:

     Musicians […] taught the people in angelic harmonies to commerce with heaven.

• “commerce”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “commerce”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Inherited from Middle French commerce, borrowed from Latin commercium (“commerce, trade”), from com- (“together”) + merx (“good, wares, merchandise”).

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.mɛʁs/

• Audio (Paris):

  (file)

commerce m (plural commerces)

1. commerce, trade
2. store, shop, trader

• commerce équitable
• commercial
• café du commerce
• fonds de commerce

• marché
• marchand

• Haitian Creole: komès

• négoce

• “commerce”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From French commerce (“commerce”).

commerce

1. business, commerce

• Alcée Fortier, Louisiana Folktales