Trader

How to spell trader

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce trader

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does trader mean?

1. nounA person who buys and sells goods or services as a business.
2. nounA person who buys and sells stocks, currencies, or other financial assets on behalf of clients or a firm.

Trader in a sentence

• The market trader sold fresh fruit from a stall every morning.

• The bond trader watched the screens closely as interest rates moved.

• As an antiques trader, she travelled to auctions across the country.

• Every trader on the floor reacted the moment the announcement broke.

Where does trader come from?

Language of origin: Dutch

The word grows out of 'trade', which English took from Middle Low German and Middle Dutch 'trade', meaning a track, a course, or the path one treads. That earlier sense was closely tied to the idea of treading a regular route, and it is a relative of the ordinary verb 'tread'. By the late 1300s and 1400s the noun had drifted from 'a beaten path' toward 'a habitual course of dealing', and then to the buying and selling of goods along such routes. Once 'trade' meant commerce, the agent suffix '-er', which simply marks the person who performs an action, was added to give 'trader', the one who carries on trade. The spelling is regular and keeps the silent final 'e' of 'trade' before the suffix, which is why it reads as 'trad-er' rather than the misspelling 'tradar'.

How the word is built

• trad- (from trade: to buy and sell)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)