Etimology
commerce + -ial. From French commercial (“of, or pertaining to commerce”), from Late Latin commercialis, from Latin commercium.
noun
commercial (plural commercials)
An advertisement in a common media format, usually radio or television.
(finance) A commercial trader, as opposed to an individual speculator.
(obsolete) A commercial traveller.
(slang) A male prostitute.
Examples
She was in a commercial for breakfast cereal.
I have more than once had to lend a commercial money to pay his fare home; as he had played shell-out and lost the lot.
Five persons went to the house after the milkman was gone, and that there Arab party was safe inside, — three of them was commercials, that I know, because afterwards they came to me.
Tom said that homosexuals hate “commercials,” male prostitutes, and if the homosexual was drunk and angry, he might have committed murder.
With the commercials there is no intensity of feeling and no later animosity; there is emotional and sexual fakery, but no prolonged post-sexual bargaining. […] Paradoxically these boys dissociate themselves from the commercials, yet engage in prostitution only when they require the money.
Related words
hypernyms
advertisement
hyponyms
infomercial
adjective
commercial (comparative more commercial, superlative most commercial)
Of or pertaining to commerce.
(aviation) Designating an airport that serves passenger and/or cargo flights.
(aviation) Designating such an airplane flight.
Examples
A two minutes' walk brought Warwick--the name he had registered under, and as we shall call him--to the market-house, the central feature of Patesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view.