Also 7 commerse. [f. prec. sb., or f. F. commercer, in same sense, (f. the sb.); cf. also L. commerciāri to trade, and med.L. commercāre.]
† 1. intr. To carry on trade; to trade, traffic.
1587. Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 1415/1. That the … subiects of either side … should safelie, freelie and securelie commerce togither.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., v. Notes, 83. Which with his shipping once should seeme to haue commerst.
1660. R. Coke, Power & Subj., 49. And men did in those dayes commerce and exchange one with another.
2. To have intercourse or converse, hold communication, associate with. arch.
1596. Spenser, State Irel., Pref. 3. Those of English bloud were forbidden to marry and commerce with them.
1632. Milton, Penseroso, 39. With … looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes.
1636. Heywood, Love’s Mistr., I. Wks. 1874, V. 104. Ile shew thee … What kind of people I commerst withall In my transhape.
1756. Amory, Buncle (1770), I. 44. Abraham and his sons conversed and commerced with the nations.
1842. Tennyson, Walking to the Mail. Commercing with himself, He lost the sense that handles daily life.
1887. Lowell, Democr., 70. To commerce with fresh forms of nature and new varieties of man.
† 3. To communicate physically.
a. 1639. Chapman & Shirley, Chabot, III. ii. The way … by which these spirits should commerce, by vapours ascending from the stomach to the head.
1680. Morden, Geog. Rect. (1685), 326. The Convenience of four Seas … by which it Commerces with the principal Regions of the World.
† 4. trans. To traffic or deal in. Obs. rare.
1624. Heywood, Captives, I. i., in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. Where last and all uncleanes are commerst As freely as comodityes are vended.
Hence Commercing vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, 6. By dayly commercing and discoursing.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., VI. 264. Sixe Germanes, foure French-men, and nine Commercing Franks.
1808. J. Barlow, Columb., IV. 90. Commercing squadrons o’er the billows bound.
1839. Carlyle, Chartism (1840), 87. The Saxon kindred burst forth into cotton-spinning, cloth-cropping, iron-forging, steamengining, railwaying, commercing and careering towards all the winds of Heaven.
