What does merchant mean?
Word: Merchant
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Merchant means a person who buys and sells goods, often in large amounts or with other countries.
Synonyms: dealer, seller
Word origin: Comes from Old French, which took it from Latin.
How do you spell merchant?
Syllables: mer - chant
Tricky part: The ending sounds like a weak ent, but it is spelt with an a, so merchent is the usual slip.
Watch out for: merchent, merchint, merchunt
Memory tip: Picture a merchant in a busy bazaar chanting his prices all day: the a in chant is the a in merchant.
Merchant in a sentence
Example 1: The silk merchant unrolled bright silks for the customers.
Example 2: Arab merchants once sailed to the Malabar coast for pepper.
Example 3: Her grandfather was a cloth merchant in Manchester.
Fun Fact
In Shakespeare's play The Merchant of Venice, the merchant of the title is Antonio, not the moneylender Shylock, though many people guess wrong.
Practise the CREST Way
Spell-o-Spell
Only one word in the list is spelt correctly. Choose the meaning of that word.
1. bargin 2. merchant 3. ledgar 4. comodity
a) a book in which a business records money spent and received
b) someone who buys and sells goods for a living
c) a product that can be bought and sold
d) something bought for less than its usual price
Show answer
b) someone who buys and sells goods for a living. Ledger ends in er, commodity has two m's and bargain hides ai, so merchant is the word spelt right.
Word Connection
Choose the word closest in meaning to merchant as used in the sentence:
A spice merchant from Kozhikode shipped sacks of cardamom to buyers across the Arabian Sea.
a) customer
b) sailor
c) trader
d) farmer
Show answer
c) trader. A merchant buys and sells goods, which is what a trader does; a customer buys from him, and a sailor or a farmer does other work.
Mingle-Mangle
Unjumble the word in the sentence and choose it:
The rich tcnamehr built a new rest house for travellers on the old trade road.
a) machinist
b) enchant
c) mechanic
d) merchant
Show answer
d) merchant. Eight letters with an m, an r and no i make merchant; mechanic and machinist need an i, and enchant has no m or r.
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
The tea murchant from Darjeeling promised that every packet carried a guarantee of freshness.
a) freshness
b) guarantee
c) Darjeeling
d) murchant
Show answer
d) murchant. The first part is mer, as in mermaid, so murchant is misspelt.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Merchant ships are mainly used for ____.
a) training naval officers
b) racing for prizes
c) rescuing swimmers at sea
d) carrying cargo between ports
Show answer
d) carrying cargo between ports
2. What would a cloth merchant most likely sell?
a) lessons in mathematics
b) medicines for coughs
c) rolls of silk and cotton
d) tickets for the train
Show answer
c) rolls of silk and cotton
