commerce Meaning, Definition & Usage

noun transactions (sales and purchases) having the objective of supplying commodities (goods and services)
mercantilism; commercialism.
noun the United States federal department that promotes and administers domestic and foreign trade (including management of the census and the patent office); created in 1913
Commerce Department; Department of Commerce; DoC.
noun social exchange, especially of opinions, attitudes, etc.

F. commerce, L. commercium; com- + merx, mercis, merchadise. See Merchant.

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.
The public becomes powerful in proportion to the opulence and extensive commerce of private men. Hume.
Social intercourse; the dealings of one person or class in society with another; familiarity.
Fifteen years of thought, observation, and commerce with the world had made him [Bunyan] wiser. Macaulay.
Sexual intercourse. W. Montagu.
A round game at cards, in which the cards are subject to exchange, barter, or trade. Hoyle. Syn. -- Trade; traffic; dealings; intercourse; interchange; communion; communication.

Cf. F. commercer, fr. LL. commerciare.

imperfect & past participle Commerced p> present & verbal noun Commercing

To carry on trade; to traffic. Obs.
Beware you commerce not with bankrupts. B. Jonson.
To hold intercourse; to commune. Milton.
Commercing with himself. Tennyson.

Musicians . . . taught the people in angelic harmonies to commerce with heaven. Prof. Wilson.