Etymology

merchandising

mer·chand·is·ing
M3E1R1C3H4A1N1D2I1S1I1N1G2

Today it means: Trade in merchandise. Full definition →

Middle English marchaundising
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Middle English · inherited frommarchaundising“commerce, trading; commodities, goods; (plural) dealings with other persons”
  2. English todaymerchandising

From Late Middle English marchaundising (“commerce, trading; commodities, goods; (plural) dealings with other persons”) [and other forms], from marchaundisen (“to engage in commerce, traffic”) (see further at merchandise (verb)) + -ing (suffix forming gerunds). The English word is analysable as merchandise + -ing (suffix forming nouns from verbs).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.