Commodity Meaning
/kəˈmɑdəti/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAnything movable (a good) that is bought and sold.
nounSomething useful or valuable.
Sentence Examples
Service economy is a useful labor that does not produce a tangible commodity.
Commodity tax is not included in the price.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
Oil is a valuable ____ that many countries depend on for energy.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Gold has always been a highly valuable global ____.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱe? Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm Proto-Italic *kom Proto-Italic *kom- Latin com- Proto-Indo-European *med- Proto-Indo-European *-os Proto-Italic *medos Latin modus Latin commodus Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ts Proto-Indo-European *-teh₂ts Proto-Italic *-tāts Latin -tās Latin commoditāsder. Anglo-Norman commoditeebor. Middle English commoditee English commodity Inherited from Middle English commoditee, borrowed from Anglo-Norman commoditee, from Latin commoditās.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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:
"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:
"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:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
Oil is a valuable ____ that many countries depend on for energy.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
Gold has always been a highly valuable global ____.