noun
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a person who engages in trade; dealer; merchant
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a vessel regularly employed in foreign or coastal trade
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stock exchange a member who operates mainly on his or her own account rather than for customers' accounts
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of trader
Explanation
A trader is a person who either buys goods and resells them, like a merchant who runs a store or a person who buys and sells stocks and bonds. The original meaning of trader was "one engaged in commerce," meaning someone who makes a living buying things and selling them at a profit. Originally, traders would literally trade goods for other goods, while today most of them trade goods for money. Financial traders work solely with money, buying and selling currency, stocks, bonds, and funds.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Brent Donnelly, now the president of Spectra Markets, was a day trader back then.
From MarketWatch • May 15, 2026
“Listen, the fact of the matter is he’s done this forever, so, like, he’s hurting,” one of his contacts told a trader by phone when Nourafchan had trouble finding a new job.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 12, 2026
If you’re a glass-half empty trader, you’ll notice that those are risk-off trades.
From Barron's • May 12, 2026
It was used in closing speeches of four people who pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol in June 2020 - all four defendants were acquitted despite admitting their involvement.
From BBC • May 12, 2026
“What if those copper ingots and that bronze knife were from…a sea trader of the time of Odysseus and the Trojan wars?”
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
