commerce

noun

1. 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. 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.

   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.

3. 3

   obsoleteSexual intercourse.

   carnal commerce

4. 4

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

verb

1. 1

   archaicTo carry on trade; to traffic.

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

2. 2

   archaicTo 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.

Forms

plural

commerces

past tense

commerced

past participle

commerced

present participle

commercing

third person singular

commerces