Etymologically
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market

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /ˈmɑː.kɪt/, US /ˈmɑːr.kɪt/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English markete, borrowed from Old Northern French market (“marketplace, trade”), a form of Old French marchiet (modern French marché),[2][3][4] from Latin mercātus (“trading, trade; a market”),[2][3][5] from mercārī (“to trade, deal in”), from merx (“wares, merchandise”).[2][3][5] Etymonline, citing de Vaan, notes that the root may come from Etruscan, like the name of the god Mercurius.[2] Hoad and the Shorter Oxford point out that late Old English already had the compound gēarmarkett (“year market”), from Old Saxon.[6][7] It is a doublet of mart,[4] and related to merchant and mercantile.[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A meeting at a fixed time for buying and selling: before 1121, as markete.[3][2]

Semantic evolution

A public place for a market is from the 13th century,[6][2] and marketplace from 1389.[3] Market price is from the mid-15th century.[2][3] The sense “opportunity for selling” is from the 16th century,[6] “a region where goods are bought and sold” from the 1610s, and “trade as governed by supply and demand” from the 1680s;[2] Locke first used market value in the 1690s.[2] The verb is recorded from 1455[8] or the 1630s.[2][3] Marketable is in Shakespeare's As You Like It (1600).[3] Market garden is from 1789, market research from 1921[2] or 1926,[3] black market from 1931 and the Common Market from 1954.[3]

Timeline

  • before 1121 – markete, a market.[3]
  • 13th century – a marketplace.[6]
  • 1389 – marketplace.[3]
  • 1455 – verb, to sell in a market.[8]
  • 1600 – marketable (Shakespeare).[3]
  • 1610s – a region of trade.[2]
  • 1680s – supply and demand.[2]
  • 1931 – black market.[3]
  • 1954 – Common Market.[3]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A public gathering for buying and selling goods.
  2. A place where goods are sold; a shop selling a particular kind of goods.
  3. The trade in a particular commodity: the housing market.
  4. Demand for goods; a region or group of potential buyers.
  5. Trade as governed by supply and demand.

Verb

  1. To offer for sale; to promote and sell.
  2. To buy household supplies.

Word family

  • marketer
  • Haymarket
  • unmarketed
  • marketeer

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
  6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)