commerce

name

1. A city in Los Angeles County, California, United States.

noun

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

1. 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.

   “[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, […]”

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

3. Sexual intercourse.

   “carnal commerce”

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

verb

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

1. To carry on trade; to traffic.

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

2. 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— […]”

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