商業
Meaning in Englishcommerce, trade, business
Animated kanji stroke order
Word context
What it means
商業 refers to the organized activity of buying, selling, and exchanging goods and services within a market economy, encompassing trade, commerce, and business operations.
Main meanings
- commerce and trade as an economic activity, especially the buying and selling of goods in a market
- the broader business sector or commercial activities within an economy
- an academic or professional field focused on commerce, business, and trade studies
How to use it
Used in formal writing, economics texts, business law, and policy discourse; commonly appears in compounds like 商業銀行 and 商業都市; in everyday speech, other terms such as 貿易 or 事業 may be used depending on nuance.
Variants and close terms
- 貿易 (boueki) - trade
- 商界 (shōkai) - business world
- 商務 (shōmu) - commercial affairs
- 非商業的 (hi shōgyō-teki) - non-commercial
Composition
- 商: commerce, market activity
- 業: work, industry; combined they denote the realm of commercial activity
Etymology
商 (on'yomi shō) and 業 (on'yomi gyō) combine to form 商業; the Japanese reading is shōgyō, borrowed from the Chinese term shāngyè.
Origin
商業 appeared in Japanese via kanbun and Chinese lexical influence; its modern sense as the organized economic activity solidified during the Edo and Meiji periods with the modernization of commerce and policy.
Word class
Noun (名詞)