mercado

Forms

mercado m (plural mercados)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mercātus (“trade, traffic; market”).^[2][3][1] The Latin noun is derived from mercor (“to buy, trade”), itself from merx (“goods, merchandise”).^[2][4][5] The BDELC places it in one family with merced, comercio and mercería.^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese mercado, Galician mercado, Asturian mercáu, Catalan mercat, Occitan mercat, French marché and Italian mercato.^[6][7][8] Spanish mercader “merchant” is a borrowing of the Catalan word mercader, derived from the Catalan word for “market”.^[2][4]

De Vaan relates the Latin word for “goods” to the god's name Mercurius.^[5] Wiktionary traces it to *merks, of uncertain origin; de Vaan supposes an Etruscan source for this economic vocabulary, while more recent Indo-European etymologies have also been proposed.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) uses the word for a business deal: Raquel and Vidas answer „Non se faze assí el mercado, sinon primero prendiendo e después dando” “that is not how a deal is done, but first by taking and then by giving”.^[9] Menéndez Pidal's vocabulary of the poem glosses it “commercial contract”.^[10] The sense “market, marketplace” appears in the fueros of the early 13th century, as in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes: „en conçeio o en mercado” “in the council or in the market”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Berceo the word already covers the market or fair, the public square, a price or value (non de rehez mercado “not cheaply bought”) and a sale, as in the mal mercado of Judas.^[11] The prose of Alfonso X uses it for a public gathering to buy and sell and for the place where this is done, and has the phrases haber de mejor mercado “to be more advantageous” and hacer mercado “to sell”.^[12] The BDELC gives the dates 1220–1250 for the old sense “acquisition, deal” and 1495 for “public place for trade”, later than the texts above.^[2]

The Diccionario de Autoridades distinguished the mercado from the feria: fairs were larger, with merchants from elsewhere bringing heavier goods, while markets were smaller but more frequent.^[13] The Academy's 1817 edition added the royal privilege to hold a market and the phrase poder vender en un buen mercado “to be shrewd, to be a match for anyone”.^[14] Salvá (1846) recorded the extension to a town or country of great trade.^[15] Alemany (1917) noted a Chilean sense “a thing or amount that is bought”, and the DLE now has buen mercado and mal mercado for a plentiful or a scanty purchase.^[16][3] The economic senses (the free play of supply and demand, the trade in one kind of goods, the body of consumers) are the most recent layer of the DLE's article.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses mercado for a deal (in a 14th-century copy).^[9][10]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes uses it for the marketplace.^[9]
• 1254 – a work of Alfonso X speaks of an official enel mercado “in the market”.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates mercado (the place) as Latin mercatus, forum and Greek-derived emporium.^[17][18]
• 1550 – the first record from the Americas, in Bogotá.^[19]
• 1571 – a text from Mexico City equates mercado with the Nahuatl word tianquiztli.^[19]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades sets mercado against feria.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. mercatus”.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. Public buying and selling held at a set place on set days: Los jueves hay mercado en la plaza.^[3]
2. A market or marketplace: a public place, permanent or used on set days, for buying, selling or exchanging goods and services.^[3][1]
3. The crowd gathered at a market.^[3]
4. (economics) The set of economic activities carried on freely, without intervention by the public authorities.^[3]
5. The trade in a particular class of goods: el mercado del aceite.^[3]
6. A town or country of special importance in some branch of trade.^[3]
7. The body of consumers able to buy a product or service.^[3]
8. The state and course of supply and demand in a sector of the economy.^[3]

Word family

• mercadear
• mercadillo
• supermercado

Related words

• mercar
• mercancía
• merced
• comercio
• Latin merx
• Italian mercato

Usage notes

Buen mercado and mal mercado are a plentiful and a scanty purchase.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mercado
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. mercado
4. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. mercado
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5516
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4285
8. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. mercáu
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. mercado
10. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. mercado
11. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. s.v. mercado
12. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. mercado
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 548
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 568
15. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 711
16. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1123
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 379
18. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. mercado
19. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. mercado
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 696