trades

Also found in: Thesaurus, Legal, Financial, Acronyms, Idioms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

trade

(trād)

1. The business of buying and selling commodities, products, or services; commerce. See Synonyms at business.

2. A branch or kind of business: the women's clothing trade.

3. The people working in or associated with a business or industry: writers, editors, and other members of the publishing trade.

4. The activity or volume of buying or selling: The trade in stocks was brisk all morning.

5. An exchange of one thing for another: baseball teams making a trade of players.

6. An occupation, especially one requiring skilled labor; craft: the building trades.

7. trades The trade winds.

v. trad·ed, trad·ing, trades

v.intr.

1. To engage in buying and selling for profit.

2. To make an exchange of one thing for another.

3. To be offered for sale or be sold: Stocks traded at lower prices this morning.

4. To shop or buy regularly: trades at the local supermarket.

v.tr.

1. To give in exchange for something else: trade farm products for manufactured goods; will trade my ticket for yours.

2. To buy and sell (stocks, for example).

3. To pass back and forth: We traded jokes.

adj.

1. Of or relating to trade or commerce.

2. Relating to, used by, or serving a particular trade: a trade magazine.

3. Of or relating to books that are primarily published to be sold commercially, as in bookstores.

Phrasal Verbs:

trade down

To trade something in for something else of lower value or price: bought a new, smaller car, trading the old one down for economy.

trade in

To surrender or sell (an old or used item), using the proceeds as partial payment on a new purchase.

trade on

To put to calculated and often unscrupulous advantage; exploit: children of celebrities who trade on their family names.

trade up

To trade something in for something else of greater value or price: The value of our house soared, enabling us to trade up to a larger place.

[Middle English, course, from Middle Low German.]

trad′a·ble, trade′a·ble adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Translations

trades

tradesman

n (= delivery man) → Lieferant m; (= shopkeeper) → Händler m, → Ladenbesitzer m; (= plumber, electrician etc) → Handwerker m; trades’s entrance → Lieferanteneingang m

tradespeople

pl → Geschäftsleute pl, → Händler pl

trades union

n (Brit) = trade union; Trades Union Congress → (britischer) Gewerkschaftsbund

tradeswoman

n (= shopkeeper) → Händlerin f, → Ladenbesitzerin f; (= plumber, electrician etc) → Handwerkerin f

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

References in classic literature ?

"Of all the trades in the world, there is only one that really suits me."

"If you do not like going to school, why don't you at least learn a trade, so that you can earn an honest living?"

View in context

It was the fur trade, in fact, which gave early sustenance and vitality to the great Canadian provinces.

In this way the trade augmented, and was drawn from remote quarters to Montreal.

View in context

For were it not for this lazy trade of usury, money would not he still, but would in great part be employed upon merchandizing; which is the vena porta of wealth in a state.

On the other side, the commodities of usury are, first, that howsoever usury in some respect hindereth merchandizing, yet in some other it advanceth it; for it is certain that the greatest part of trade is driven by young merchants, upon borrowing at interest; so as if the usurer either call in, or keep back, his money, there will ensue, presently, a great stand of trade.

View in context

State of the fur trade of the Rocky Mountains American enterprises General Ashley and his associates Sublette, a famous leader Yearly rendezvous among the mountains Stratagems and dangers of the trade Bands of trappers Indian banditti Crows and Blackfeet Mountaineers Traders of the Far West Character and habits of the trapper

John Jacob Astor to establish an American emporium for the fur trade at the mouth of the Columbia, or Oregon River; of the failure of that enterprise through the capture of Astoria by the British, in 1814; and of the way in which the control of the trade of the Columbia and its dependencies fell into the hands of the Northwest Company.

View in context

What on earth do we know about the Levant Trade? Courage!

View in context

It appeared he had "served his time" in the copper-ore trade, the famous copper-ore trade of old days between Swansea and the Chilian coast, coal out and ore in, deep-loaded both ways, as if in wanton defiance of the great Cape Horn seas - a work, this, for staunch ships, and a great school of staunchness for West- Country seamen.

View in context

The popular system of administration inherent in the nature of popular government, coinciding with the real scarcity of money incident to a languid and mutilated state of trade, has hitherto defeated every experiment for extensive collections, and has at length taught the different legislatures the folly of attempting them.

View in context

But the other butchers were wroth when they found how he was taking their trade; and they accordingly put their heads together.