commerce

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.countableuncountable

2. 2

   Social intercourse; the dealings of one person or class in society with another; familiarity.countableuncountable

   • 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

   Sexual intercourse.countableobsoleteuncountable

   • carnal commerce
4. 4

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

syn. trade · traffic · dealings · intercourse · interchange · communion · communication

1. 1

   To carry on trade; to traffic.archaicintransitive

   • [A]lwaies beware you commerce not with bankrupts, […]
2. 2

   To hold conversation; to communicate.archaicintransitive

   • 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.