commercial

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *ḱe?

Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm

Proto-Italic *kom

Proto-Italic *kom-

Late Latin con-

Proto-Italic *merks

Late Latin merx

Proto-Indo-European *-yós

Proto-Italic *-ios

Old Latin -ios

Latin -ius

Late Latin -ium

Late Latin commercium

Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-der.?

Proto-Italic *-ālis

Late Latin -ālis

Late Latin commerciālislbor.

French commercialbor.

English commercial

From French commercial (“of, or pertaining to commerce”), from Late Latin commercialis, from Latin commercium. By surface analysis, commerce +‎ -ial.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kəˈmɜː.ʃəl/
• (General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /kəˈmɝ.ʃəl/

  • Audio (General American):

    (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /kəˈmɜː.ʃəl/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /kəˈmøː.ʃəl/

Noun

commercial (plural commercials)

1. An advertisement in a common media format, usually radio or television.

   She was in a commercial for breakfast cereal.

2. (finance) A commercial trader, as opposed to an individual speculator.
3. (obsolete) A commercial traveller.
   • 1875, George Worsley, Advice to the Young!, page 32:

     I have more than once had to lend a commercial money to pay his fare home; as he had played shell-out and lost the lot.

   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     Five persons went to the house after the milkman was gone, and that there Arab party was safe inside, — three of them was commercials, that I know, because afterwards they came to me.

4. (slang) A male prostitute.
   • 1972, Alfred Eustace Parker, The Berkeley Police Story, page 133:

     Tom said that homosexuals hate “commercials,” male prostitutes, and if the homosexual was drunk and angry, he might have committed murder.

   • 1987, Paul William Mathews, Male Prostitution: Two Monographs, page 39:

     With the commercials there is no intensity of feeling and no later animosity; there is emotional and sexual fakery, but no prolonged post-sexual bargaining. […] Paradoxically these boys dissociate themselves from the commercials, yet engage in prostitution only when they require the money.

Hypernyms

• advertisement

Hyponyms

• infomercial

Derived terms

• commercial break
• documercial
• e-commercial
• fictomercial
• infomercial
• intromercial

Translations

advertisement in a common media format

• Arabic: إِعْلَان تِجَارِيّ m (ʔiʕlān tijāriyy)
• Armenian: գովազդ (hy) (govazd)
• Bulgarian: рекла́ма (bg) f (rekláma)
• Catalan: anunci (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 廣告 / 广告 (zh) (guǎnggào)

• Czech: reklama (cs) f
• Danish: reklame (da) c, reklamefilmen c
• Dutch: reclamespot (nl)
• Faroese: lýsing f
• Finnish: mainos (fi)
• French: publicité (fr) f
• Galician: anuncio m
• German: Werbung (de) f, Werbespot (de) m
• Greek: διαφήμιση (el) f (diafímisi)
• Hebrew: פִּרְסוֹמֶת (he) f (pirsómet), תַּשְׁדִּיר m (tashdír)
• Hindi: विज्ञापन (hi) m (vijñāpan)
• Hungarian: reklám (hu)
• Indonesian: iklan (id)
• Japanese: コマーシャル (ja) (komāsharu), シーエム (shīemu), ＣＭ (shīemu)
• Korean: 씨에프 (ssiepeu), CF (ko) (ssiepeu)
• Macedonian: рекла́ма f (rekláma), ЕПП n (EPP)
• Malay: iklan (ms)
• Norwegian: reklame m, annonse m
• Persian: آگهی بازرگانی (âgahi ye bâzargâni), آنونس (fa) (ânons)
• Polish: reklama (pl) f
• Portuguese: anúncio (pt) m, comercial (pt) m, propaganda (pt) f
• Romanian: reclamă (ro) f
• Russian: рекла́ма (ru) f (rekláma)
• Slovak: reklama f
• Spanish: anuncio (es) m, comercial (es) m, spot (es) m, publicidad (es) f
• Turkish: reklam (tr)
• Ukrainian: рекла́ма (uk) f (rekláma)

Adjective

commercial (comparative more commercial, superlative most commercial)

1. Of or pertaining to commerce.
   • 1900, Charles W[addell] Chesnutt, chapter I, in The House Behind the Cedars, Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Houghton, Mifflin and Company […], →OCLC:

     A two minutes' walk brought Warwick--the name he had registered under, and as we shall call him--to the market-house, the central feature of Patesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view.

2. (aviation) Designating an airport that serves passenger and/or cargo flights.
3. (aviation) Designating such an airplane flight.

Derived terms

• aerocommercial
• anticommercial
• asset-backed commercial paper
• commercial at
• commercial bank
• commercial banking
• Commercial End
• commercialese
• commercial invoice
• commercialise
• commercialism
• commercialist
• commerciality
• commercial law
• commercial letter of credit
• commercially
• commercial model
• commercial off-the-shelf
• commercial paper
• commercial room
• countercommercial
• e-commercial
• noncommercial
• non-commercial
• politicocommercial
• resimercial
• semicommercial
• supercommercial
• ultracommercial
• uncommercial

Translations

of or pertaining to commerce

• Arabic: تِجَارِيّ (tijāriyy)
• Armenian: առեւտրային (hy) (aṙewtrayin)
• Bulgarian: комерсиален (bg) (komersialen), търговски (tǎrgovski)
• Catalan: comercial (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 商業 / 商业 (zh) (shāngyè)

• Czech: obchodní (cs), komerční (cs)
• Danish: handels-, erhvervs-, kommerciel (da)
• Dutch: commercieel (nl)
• Esperanto: komerca
• Finnish: kaupallinen (fi)
• French: commercial (fr)
• Galician: comercial (gl)
• Georgian: კომერციალური (ḳomercialuri), სავაჭრო (savač̣ro)
• German: kommerziell (de), geschäftlich (de), gewerblich (de), Handels-
• Greek: εμπορικός (el) (emporikós)

  Ancient Greek: ἐμπορικός (emporikós)

• Hebrew: מסחרי (miskhari)
• Hindi: वाणिज्यिक (vāṇijyik)
• Hungarian: kereskedelmi (hu)
• Indonesian: komersial (id)
• Italian: commerciale (it)
• Japanese: 商業の (ja) (しょうぎょうの, shōgyō no)
• Kazakh: коммерциялық (kommersiälyq)
• Latvian: tirdzniecisks, veikalniecisks
• Macedonian: стопански (stopanski), трговски (trgovski), комерција́лен (komercijálen)
• Malay: perdagangan (ms), komersil
• Malayalam: വാണിജ്യ (vāṇijya)
• Māori: arumoni
• Marathi: वाणिज्यिक (vāṇijyik), व्यापारविषयक (vyāpārviṣyak), व्यापारी (mr) (vyāpārī)
• Persian: تجاری (fa) (tejâri)
• Polish: komercyjny (pl)
• Portuguese: comercial (pt)
• Romanian: comercial (ro)
• Russian: торго́вый (ru) (torgóvyj), комме́рческий (ru) (kommérčeskij)
• Serbo-Croatian: komercijalan (sh), trgovački (sh)
• Spanish: comercial (es)
• Tagalog: kalakalin
• Thai: เชิงพาณิชย์ (choeng-pha-nit)
• Ukrainian: комерційний (uk) (komercijnyj)

Related terms

• commerce
• commercialize
• precommercial

Further reading

• “commercial”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “commercial”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

French

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Late Latin commerciālis. By surface analysis, commerce +‎ -ial.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɔ.mɛʁ.sjal/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Audio (Canada (Shawinigan)):

  (file)

• Audio (France (Somain)):

  (file)

• Homophones: commerciale, commerciales

Adjective

commercial (feminine commerciale, masculine plural commerciaux, feminine plural commerciales)

1. commercial

Derived terms

• centre commercial
• commercialement
• fonds commercial
• guerre commerciale
• marque commerciale

Noun

commercial m (plural commerciaux)

1. a salesman, sales representative

Further reading

• “commercial”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Portuguese

Noun

commercial m (plural commerciaes or commerciais)

1. obsolete spelling of comercial

Adjective

commercial m or f (plural commerciaes or commerciais)

1. obsolete spelling of comercial