mercantile

[mur-kuh n-teel, -tahyl, -til]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR mercantile ON THESAURUS.COM

adjective

of or relating to merchants or trade; commercial.

engaged in trade or commerce: a mercantile nation.

Economics. of or relating to the mercantile system.

Origin of mercantile

1635–45; < French < Italian: pertaining to merchants, equivalent to mercant(e) merchant (< Latin mercant-, stem of mercāns buyer, noun use of present participle of mercārī to buy) + -ile -ile

Related formsnon·mer·can·tile, adjectivequa·si-mer·can·tile, adjectiveun·mer·can·tile, adjective

Synonym study

1. See commercial.

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for mercantile

profitable, financial, wholesale, monetary, economic, fiscal, industrial, commercial, budgetary, exchange, trade, trading, market, retail, commissary, merchandising, sales, supplying, marketable

Examples from the Web for mercantile

Contemporary Examples of mercantile

Copyright renewed 1969 by August Mencken and Mercantile Safe Deposit Trust Co.
The Stacks: H.L. Mencken on the 1904 Baltimore Fire
H.L. Mencken
October 4, 2014

Historical Examples of mercantile

Moreover, the use of it is gradually extending in the mercantile marine.
Heroes of the Telegraph
J. Munro
When Mr. Weddell commenced his mercantile life it was no child's play.
Cleveland Past and Present
Maurice Joblin
He dreamed in terms of battleships and of a mercantile marine.
The Harbor
Ernest Poole
And I must laugh to see my neighbours making a to-do about a mercantile bargain.
Gilian The Dreamer
Neil Munro
My friend Tom has worked on a farm, while I have been engaged in mercantile pursuits.
The Young Miner
Horatio Alger, Jr.

British Dictionary definitions for mercantile

mercantile

adjective

of, relating to, or characteristic of trade or traders; commercial

of or relating to mercantilism

Word Origin for mercantile

C17: from French, from Italian, from mercante merchant

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for mercantile

adj.

1640s, from French mercantile (17c.), from Italian mercantile, from Medieval Latin mercantile, from Latin mercantem (nominative mercans) "a merchant," also "trading," present participle of mercari "to trade," from merx (see market (n.)). Mercantile system first appears in Adam Smith (1776).