commodity

plural commodities · alternative archaic commoditie

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

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   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.

4. countableuncountablebusinessUndifferentiated goods characterized by a low profit margin and (usually) fungibility, as distinguished from branded products not wholly fungible.

   Although they were once in the forefront of consumer electronics, the calculators have become a mere commodity.

5. MarxismcountableuncountableAnything which has both a use value and an exchange value.
6. countableobsoleteuncountableConvenience; usefulness, suitability.First known use 15th–19th c.
7. countableobsoleteuncountableSelf-interest; personal convenience or advantage.First known use 16th–19th c.

   they commonly respect their own ends, commodity is the steer of all their action[…].

   1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC

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   Shall we employ the intelligence Heaven hath bestowed upon us for our greatest good, to our ruine? repugning natures desseign and the universal order and vicissitude of things, which implieth that every man should use his instruments and meanes for his owne commoditie?

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 40, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book I, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC