commodity

What it means

1. countableuncountablebusinessAnything movable (a good) that is bought and sold.First known use 15th c.

   Referring to the work of Bourdieu, Zukin (2004,38) notes that shopping is much more than the purchase of commodities.

   2005, William Leiss, Botterill, Jacki, Social Communication in Advertising: Consumption in the Mediated Marketplace, page 307

   4 more examples

   It is with the help of the commodity concept that the mechanism of the market is geared to the various elements of industrial life. Commodities are here empirically defined as objects produced for sale on the market; […]. But labor, land, and money are obviously not commodities; the postulate that anything that is bought and sold must have been produced for sale is emphatically untrue in regard to them.

   1957 [1944], Karl Polanyi, chapter 6, in The Great Transformation, Beacon Press: Boston, page 72

   If a key part of shopping is the conversion of anonymous commodities into possessions, shopping is a cultural as much as an economic activity.

   1995, James G. Carrier, Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism Since 1700, page 122

   In human geography "commodities" usually refers to goods and services which are bought and sold. The simplest commodities are those produced by the production system just before they are sold.

   2001, Rachel Pain, Introducing Social Geographies, page 26

   For mineral trains, he adds little other than pointing out the need to expand single-commodity trains and to end the use of mixed-commodity services that required extensive marshalling.

   2023 March 8, Gareth Dennis, “The Reshaping of things to come...”, in RAIL, number 978, page 48

2. countableuncountableSomething useful or valuable.First known use 15th c.

   And Slade said: "It really makes me sad that football club chairmen and boards seem to have lost that most precious commodity - patience. "Sam's sacking at Newcastle had, I suppose, been on the cards for a while, but it is really ridiculous to fire a manager after such a short time.

   2008 January 14, Somerset County Gazette

3. countableuncountableeconomicsRaw materials, agricultural and other primary products as objects of large-scale trading in specialized exchanges.

   The price of crude oil is determined in continuous trading between professional players in World's many commodities exchanges.

In a sentence

If a key part of shopping is the conversion of anonymous commodities into possessions, shopping is a cultural as much as an economic activity.

1995, James G. Carrier, Gifts and Commodities: Exchange and Western Capitalism Since 1700, page 122

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*ḱe?
2. Proto-Indo-European*ḱóm
3. Proto-Italic*kom
4. Proto-Italic*kom-
5. Latincom-
6. Proto-Indo-European*med-
7. Proto-Indo-European*médos
8. Proto-Italic*medos
9. Latinmodus
10. Latincommodus
11. Latincommoditās
12. Anglo-Normancommoditee
13. Middle Englishcommoditee
14. Englishcommodity

Inherited from Middle English commoditee, borrowed from Anglo-Norman commoditee, from Latin commoditās.

First known use: 15th c.