commerce meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

commerce

noun

UK /ˈkɒm.əs/ · US /ˈkɑ.mɚs/

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

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.

Social intercourse; the dealings of one person or class in society with another; familiarity.

[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, […]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:
Fifteen years of thought, observation, and commerce with the world had made him [Bunyan] wiser.1911, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Bunyan, John”, in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica:

1 more example

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

Obsolete Sexual intercourse.

carnal commerce

Card games, Games An 18th-century French card game in which the cards are subject to exchange, barter, or trade.

Synonyms: trade, traffic, dealings, intercourse, interchange, communion, communication
Derived terms: anticommerce, biocommerce, chamber of commerce, Commerce City, commerce destroyer, commerceless, commerce raider, commerce raiding, commerciable, commercial, conversational commerce, cybercommerce, ecommerce, Incoterm, s-commerce, s-Commerce, telecommerce
Hyponyms: E-commerce, e-commerce, electronic commerce, m-commerce, silent commerce, social commerce

commerce

verb

UK /kəˈmɜːs/ · US /kəˈmɝs/

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

Archaic To carry on trade; to traffic.

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

Archaic To hold conversation; to communicate.

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— […]1842, Alfred Tennyson, “Walking to the Mail”, in Poems. […], volume II, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 48:
Musicians […] taught the people in angelic harmonies to commerce with heaven.1844, John Wilson, Essay on the Genius, and Character of Burns: