mercantile : Idioms & Phrases

• noun an organization that provides businesses with credit ratings of other firms
  commercial agency.
  
  • Dun & Bradstreet is the largest mercantile agency in the United States

WordNet

• an agency for procuring information of the standing and credit of merchants in different parts of the country, for the use of dealers who sell to them.

Webster 1913

• noun a place of business for retailing goods
  sales outlet; outlet; retail store.
  

WordNet

• noun the body of rules applied to commercial transactions; derived from the practices of traders rather than from jurisprudence
  law merchant; commercial law.
  

WordNet

• the persons and vessels employed in commerce, taken collectively.

Webster 1913

• the notes or acceptances given by merchants for goods bought, or received on consignment; drafts on merchants for goods sold or consigned.

Webster 1913

• noun an economic system (Europe in 18th century) to increase a nation's wealth by government regulation of all of the nation's commercial interests
  mercantilism.
  

WordNet