commerce

Definition of commerce

Etymology

From Middle French commerce < Latin commercium ("commerce, trade") < com- ("together") + merx ("good, wares, merchandise")

Pronunciation

• IPA:
  US: /ˈkɑ.mɝs/
  UK: /ˈkɒ.mɜs/ (Formerly accented on the second syllable.)
• Audio (US) ^[?]

Noun

commerce (uncountable)

1. (business) The exchange or buying and selling of commodities; esp. 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.
   
   * Macaulay:
   Fifteen years of thought, observation, and commerce with the world had made him [Bunyan] wiser.
   
   
3. Sexual intercourse.
4. A round game at cards, in which the cards are subject to exchange, barter, or trade.

Synonyms

• trade; traffic; dealings; intercourse; interchange; communion; communication.

Derived terms

• chamber of commerce
• commercial

Verb

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

1. (dated) To carry on trade; to traffic.
   
   Beware you commerce not with bankrupts. -B. Jonson.
   
   
2. (dated) To hold intercourse; to commune.
   
   Commercing with himself. -Tennyson.
   Musicians ... taught the people in angelic harmonies to commerce with heaven. -Prof. Wilson.

External links

• commerce in Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• commerce in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911

Further reading

Commerce is a division of trade or production which deals with the exchange of goods and services from producer to final consumer. It comprises the trading of something of economic value such as goods, services, information, or money between two or more entities. Commerce functions as the central mechanism which drives capitalism and certain other economic systems (but compare command economy, for example). Commercialization or commercialisation consists of the process of transforming something into a product, service or activity which one may then use in commerce. Commerce involves trade and aids to trade which help in the exchange of goods and services.

Word usage

Commerce primarily expresses the fairly abstract notions of buying and selling, whereas trade may refer to the exchange of a specific class of goods ("the sugar trade", for example), or to a specific act of exchange (as in "a trade on the stock-exchange").

Business can refer to an organization set up for the purpose of engaging in manufacturing or exchange, as well as serving as a loose synonym of the abstract collective "commerce and industry".