merchandise

See also: merchandisé

EnglishEdit

Alternative formsEdit

EtymologyEdit

From Middle English marchaundise, from Anglo-Norman marchaundise, from marchaunt (“merchant”).

See etymology for merchant

PronunciationEdit

NounEdit

merchandise (usually uncountable, plural merchandises)

  1. (uncountable) Goods which are or were offered or intended for sale.
    good business depends on having good merchandise
    • 1908, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, Sessional papers. Inventory control record 1, page 29:
      The custom of giving away merchandise for advertising purposes is greatly on the increase in this country. More goods are now distributed in one year as advertising novelties and as premiums than in a decade 10 or 15 years ago.
    • 1936, Cecil Day Lewis, The Whispering Roots, Jonathan Cape, page 175:
      It has been stated that Fred Beers is giving free merchandise to this store and I believe you will find that one of your inspectors obtained a bottle of milk free when he purchased some groceries on Thursday Nov. 23rd [1933].
  2. (uncountable) Commercial goods connected (branded) with an entity such as a team, band, company, charity, work of fiction, festival, or meme. (Commonly shortened to merch.)
  3. (countable, archaic) A commodity offered for sale; an article of commerce; a kind of merchandise.
    • 1622, John Wing (Minister of the English congregation at Flushing.), The Best Merchandise, Or a Cleare Discovery of the Evident Difference, and Admirable Advantage, Between Our Traffike with God for the True Treasure and with Men for Temporall Commodity, page 9:
      Would we then see in what sence heavenly things may be called a merchandise, and in what sence not; this is easy to him that will understand.
    • 1822 June 18, Great Britain. Parliament, “Marriage Act Amendment Bill”, in The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, published 1823, page 1135:
      What security was there that she might not be a very unfit person, one who had made a merchandise of her charms, the child itself being the offspring of some accidental connexion?
    • 1839, The holy bible containing the old and the new testaments‎[1]:
      Who feeds a flock, and makes not a merchandise of the sheep?
  4. (uncountable, archaic) The act or business of trading; trade; traffic.

Usage notesEdit

  • Adjectives often applied to "merchandise": returned, used, damaged, stolen, assorted, lost, promotional, industrial, cheap, expensive, imported, good, inferior.

SynonymsEdit

TranslationsEdit

VerbEdit

merchandise (third-person singular simple present merchandises, present participle merchandising, simple past and past participle merchandised)

  1. (intransitive, archaic) To engage in trade; to carry on commerce.
    • a. 1626, Francis Bacon, Of Usury
      merchandising , which is the vena porta of wealth in a State : the second , that it makes poor merchants ; for as a farmer cannot husband his grown so well if he sit at a great rent
  2. (intransitive) To engage in in-store promotion of the sale of goods, as by display and arrangement of goods.
    He started his career merchandising in a small clothing store chain.
  3. (transitive, archaic) To engage in the trade of.
  4. (transitive) To engage in in-store promotion of the sale of.
    He got hired to merchandise some new sporting goods lines.
  5. (transitive) To promote as if for sale.
    The record companies don't get as good a return on merchandising artists under contract.

TranslationsEdit

Related termsEdit

ReferencesEdit

FrenchEdit

PronunciationEdit

VerbEdit

merchandise

  1. first-person singular present indicative of merchandiser
  2. third-person singular present indicative of merchandiser
  3. first-person singular present subjunctive of merchandiser
  4. third-person singular present subjunctive of merchandiser
  5. second-person singular imperative of merchandiser
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