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Commerce was a normal English word for trade from C16, from fw commerce, F, commercium, L, rw com, L – together, merx, L – ware or merchandise. Commerce was also extended from C16 to describe all kinds of ‘dealings’ – meetings, interactions – between men. Commercial appeared from lC17 in the more specific sense of activities connected with trade, as distinct from other activities. It was at first primarily descriptive but began to acquire critical associations from mC18. The fully critical word is commercialism, from mC19, to indicate a system which puts financial profit before any other consideration. Meanwhile commerce retained its neutral sense, and commercial could be used either favourably or unfavourably.

There is an interesting contemporary use of commercial to describe a broadcast advertisement, and in some associated popular entertainment there was, from the 1960s, a use of commercial to mean not only successful but also effective or powerful work, as in popular music the favourable commercial sound. Meanwhile, however, commercial broadcasting preferred to describe itself as independent (cf. CAPITALISM and free or private enterprise).