The Collaborative International Dictionary
merchantry \mer"chant*ry\, n.
The body of merchants taken collectively; as, the merchantry of a country.
The business of a merchant; merchandise.
--Walpole.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context dated English) The body of merchants taken collectively. 2 (context dated English) The business of a merchant; merchandise.
Usage examples of "merchantry".
Iceland and still stranger waters, skippers of Dutch luggers and Norway brigs who leavened their lawful merchantry with commodities not approved by law.
The play was banned by the Tsar, who thought its portrait of the merchantry - even if it was based on a story from real life - might prove damaging to its relations with the Crown.
He was whispering behind his hand to one of the men in his merchantry business.
A face swam out of memory: Vur Bract, a youngish man with a bent for merchantry.
I grew aware of all the bustle and tumult which went on beneath the apparency of peace and stillness-the subterranean labour of dissolution which ceases not for night or day-the toil of worms and beetles and moles in the service of time and change, and the merchantry of necrophores in the underground city of death.
But when he turned to ascend along narrow cobbled streets toward the Sandhold, the character of the warerooms and merchantries changed.
The merchantries became fewer and more sumptuous, catering to a more munificent trade than the general run of sailors and townspeople.
The lamps of aroused homes and defended merchantries stood against roving brands held by looters, or soldiers, or fleeing sailors.