Commodity

How to spell commodity

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce commodity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does commodity mean?

1. nounA raw material or basic good, such as oil, grain, or metal, that can be bought and sold on a market.
2. nounA useful or valuable thing, especially one in limited supply.

Commodity in a sentence

• The price of every major commodity rose sharply after the harvest failed.

• In her busy household, free time had become a rare commodity.

• Crude oil remains the most heavily traded commodity in the world.

• Trust is a precious commodity that takes years to build.

Where does commodity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin commoditas, meaning 'fitness', 'convenience', or 'advantage', which was built on the adjective commodus, 'suitable' or 'convenient'. That adjective combined com-, 'with' or 'together', and modus, 'measure', so its literal sense was something well measured and therefore fitting for a purpose. English borrowed it through Old French commodite in the late 1300s, at first meaning 'benefit' or 'a convenient thing'. Over the following centuries the meaning narrowed toward useful articles of trade, and by the modern era it settled into the economic sense of a basic good that can be bought and sold. The same modus root sits inside relatives such as 'mode', 'modest', and 'accommodate', and remembering that buried 'mod' (measure) helps fix the single d and the -ity ending that writers often muddle.

How the word is built

• com- (with, together)
• mod (measure, fit)
• -ity (noun-forming suffix)