trade

From Middle English trade (“path, course of conduct”), introduced into English by Hanseatic merchants, from Middle Low German trade (“track, course”), from Old Saxon trada (“spoor, track”), from Proto-Germanic *tradō (“track, way”), and cognate with Old English tredan (“to tread”); ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *dreh₂- (“to tread, walk, step, run”).

• Audio (UK)

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• IPA^(key): /tɹeɪd/

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• Rhymes: -eɪd

trade (countable and uncountable, plural trades)

1. (uncountable) Buying and selling of goods and services on a market.

   Synonym: commerce

2. (countable) A particular instance of buying or selling.

   I did no trades with them once the rumors started.

   Synonyms: deal, barter

3. (countable) An instance of bartering items in exchange for one another.
   • 1989, Bruce Pandolfini, Chess Openings: Traps and Zaps‎, →ISBN, Glossary, page 225:

     EXCHANGE — A trade or swap of no material profit to either side.

   • 2009, Elliott Kalb, Mark Weinstein, The 30 Greatest Sports Conspiracy Theories of All Time‎, →ISBN, page 60:

     When Golden State matched the Knicks' offer sheet, the Warriors and Knicks worked out a trade that sent King to New York for Richardson.

4. (countable) Those who perform a particular kind of skilled work.

   The skilled trades were the first to organize modern labor unions.

   • 2006, Edwin Black, chapter 2, in Internal Combustion‎:

     But through the oligopoly, charcoal fuel proliferated throughout London's trades and industries.  By the 1200s, brewers and bakers, tilemakers, glassblowers, pottery producers, and a range of other craftsmen all became hour-to-hour consumers of charcoal.

   Synonym: business

5. (countable) Those engaged in an industry or group of related industries.

   It is not a retail showroom. It is only for the trade.

6. (countable) The skilled practice of a practical occupation.
   • 1969, Paul Simon, Simon & Garfunkel, “The Boxer”, Bridge over Troubled Water, Columbia Records:

     In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade

   He learned his trade as an apprentice.

   Synonym: craft

7. (countable or uncountable) An occupation in the secondary sector, as opposed to an agricultural, professional or military one.

   After failing his entrance exams, he decided to go into a trade.

   Most veterans went into trade when the war ended.

   • 2007, Michael Lynch, The Oxford Companion to Scottish History, USA: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 228:

     Subsequently some Scottish troops settled, took up trade as weavers, tailors, or mariners, and married Dutch women.

   • 2012, Liberty Carrington, Wide Eyes Closed, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 92:

     Getting a job in your major is no breeze: Remember we made fun of those who took up a trade

8. (uncountable, UK) The business given to a commercial establishment by its customers.

   Even before noon there was considerable trade.

   Synonym: patronage

9. (chiefly in the plural) Steady winds blowing from east to west above and below the equator.

   They rode the trades going west.

   • 1826 [1816], James Horsburgh, India Directory, Or Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies, China, New Holland, Cape of Good Hope, Brazil and the Interjacent Ports‎, page 28:

     Calms and variable winds, are also experienced during every month of the year, in the space between the trades; […] the vicinity of the north-east trade seems most liable to them.

10. (only as plural) A publication intended for participants in an industry or related group of industries.

    Rumors about layoffs are all over the trades.

11. (uncountable, gay slang) A masculine man available for casual sex with men, often for pay. (Compare rough trade.)
    • 1950, W. H. Auden, “A Playboy of the Western World: St. Oscar, The Homintern Martyr”, in Partisan Review‎, pages 391–2:

      In a homosexual of this kind—corresponding to the test of eccentric behavior in the drawing-room—one usually finds a preference for "trade," i.e., sexually normal males, because, if another homosexual yields to him, he is only one of a class, but if he can believe that an exception is being made in his case, it seems a proof that he is being accepted for himself alone.

    Josh picked up some trade last night.

12. (obsolete, uncountable) Instruments of any occupation.
    • 1697, John Dryden, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in The works of Virgil containing his Pastorals, Georgics and Aeneis‎, page 112:

      His House and household Gods! his trade of War, / His Bow and Quiver; and his trusty Cur.

13. (mining) Refuse or rubbish from a mine.
14. (obsolete) A track or trail; a way; a path; passage.
    • 1557, Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, The Second Book of Virgil's Æneid:

      A postern with a blind wicket there was, / A common trade to pass through Priam's house

    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book II:

      As Shepheardes curre, that in darke eveninges shade / Hath tracted forth some salvage beastes trade

    • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, Richard II, act III, scene iii:

      Or, I'll be buried in the king's highway, / Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet / May hourly trample on their sovereign's head.

15. (obsolete) Course; custom; practice; occupation.
    • 1545, Nicholas Udall, Paraphrase on Luke, translation of original by Desiderius Erasmus:

      The Jewes, emong whom alone and no moe, God hitherto semed for to reigne, by reason of their knowledge of the law, and of the autoritee of being in the right trade of religion.

    • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Book II:

      There those five sisters had continual trade / And used to bathe themselves in that deceitful shade.

    • 1655, Philip Massinger, John Fletcher, A Very Woman:

      Long did I love this lady, / Long was my travel, long my trade to win her.

    • c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

      Thy sin's not accidental but a trade.

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:trade.

trade (third-person singular simple present trades, present participle trading, simple past and past participle traded)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To engage in trade.

   Synonym: deal

   This company trades (in) precious metal.

   • 1727, John Arbuthnot, Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights and Measures‎, page 248:

     […] a free port, where Nations warring with one another resorted with their Goods, and traded as in a neutral Country.

2. (finance, intransitive, copulative) To be traded at a certain price or under certain conditions.

   Apple is trading at $200.

   ExxonMobil trades on the NYSE.

   The stock is trading rich relative to its sector.

3. (transitive, with for) To give (something) in exchange (for).

   Synonyms: exchange, swap, switch, truck

   Will you trade your precious watch for my earring?

4. (transitive) To mutually exchange (something) (with).

   The rival schoolboys traded insults.

   • 2007 September 25, Bungie, Halo 3, Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox 360, level/area: Terminal Six (Legendary):

     The [Halo effect] strikes our combined fleets. All ships piloted by biologicals are now [adrift]. I can trade Mendicant ship for ship now and still prevail.

   • 2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 29:08 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?‎, archived from the original on 3 November 2022:

     Kalinin Bay is also in trouble, trading fire with Japanese destroyers and taking hits from both them and cruisers at the same time. Unlike the Gambier Bay, however, it does not appear that these ships have realized they need to switch to high explosive from armor-piercing, and, despite being riddled with shellfire, the ship stays afloat, despite this rather-unequal battering going on for another twenty to thirty minutes.

5. (transitive, with on) To use or exploit a particular aspect, such as a name, reputation, or image, to gain advantage or benefit.

   Synonyms: exploit, capitalize on, take advantage of, use, leverage, benefit from, make use of, milk

   Some musicians try to trade on their past success by playing the same hits over and over again.

6. (horticulture, transitive or intransitive) To give someone a plant and receive a different one in return.
7. (transitive, intransitive) To do business; offer for sale as for one's livelihood.

   Synonym: do business

8. (intransitive) To have dealings; to be concerned or associated (with).
   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene v]:

     Saucy and over bold, how did you dare / To trade and traffic with Macbeth

9. (transitive) To recommend and get recommendations.

   Synonym: exchange

trade (not comparable)

1. Of a product, produced for sale in the ordinary bulk retail trade and hence of only the most basic quality.
   • 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World […], London, New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:

     "It is monstrous - grotesque." "But what made him draw such an animal?" "Trade gin, I should think."

• buy
• sell

• E-tard, adret, dater, derat, drate, rated, tared, tread

trade

1. (dated or formal) singular past subjunctive of treden

• IPA^(key): /tʁɛd/

trade

1. inflection of trader:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

• dater, tarde, tardé

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɾade/ [ˈt̪ɾa.ð̞ɪ]
• Rhymes: -ade
• Hyphenation: tra‧de

From Old Galician-Portuguese traado, independently attested (14th century); from Late Latin taratrum (“auger”), used by Isidore of Seville. Probably from a pre-Roman substrate of Iberia or from Proto-Celtic *taratrom, from Proto-Indo-European *térh₁-tro-.

Cognate with Portuguese trado, Spanish taladro, Old Irish tarathar, Old Welsh tarater, Breton tarar.

• trado

trade m (plural trades)

1. auger

   Synonyms: broca, barrena

• tradar

• tarabelo

• “trade”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, since 2012
• “trade” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006–2013.
• “trade” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
• “trade” in Dicionário Estraviz de galego (2014).
• “trade” in Álvarez, Rosario (coord.): Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués, Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega.

trade

1. inflection of tradar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

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trade

1. inflection of traden:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. first/third-person singular subjunctive I
   3. singular imperative

trāde

1. second-person singular present active imperative of trādō

• “trade”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers