How to Use mercantile in a Sentence

mercantile

adjective
  • That structure was built as a mercantile store in the 1820s, according to the city.
    Rebekah Riess, Amanda Watts and Leah Asmelash, CNN, 6 Feb. 2020
  • This is how the boys talk—with the same energy as fans, but with a mercantile mind-set and the language of sneakerheads.
    Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 26 Nov. 2019
  • Like the victims of 9/11, the slaves of New York were actors in the great mercantile drama that daily animates the city.
    Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek, 15 Apr. 2015
  • The mercantile store and rail depot shuttered with the onset of the Great Depression.
    Timothy Fanning, San Antonio Express-News, 11 Apr. 2022
  • Next door, Winslet and Rhys is a modern mercantile store that also sells works by artists from the co-working space behind the shop (winsletandrhys.com).
    Marli Guzzetta, WSJ, 21 Sep. 2017
  • The signing took place just a few miles from the port of Piraeus, which abuts the Greek capital and is the major symbol of China’s mercantile ambitions in the West.
    Christopher R. O'Dea, National Review, 7 Nov. 2019
  • Even so, the mercantile tone of these communications caught me off guard.
    John B. Snow, Outdoor Life, 21 Sep. 2020
  • Donald Trump doesn’t have many firm policy convictions, but one of them seems to be a mercantile faith in the virtue of a weak currency.
    WSJ, 14 Apr. 2017
  • Palmer, a magnetic and genial golfer, brought sports into the modern mercantile era and helped globalize the game.
    Christopher Clarey, New York Times, 22 Dec. 2016
  • In the early to mid-1800s Manhattan emerged as the financial and mercantile hub of America.
    Edward Kosner, WSJ, 25 Jan. 2022
  • It was rebuilt and continued as a mercantile store until around 1919.
    Katherine Feser, Houston Chronicle, 5 June 2020
  • There were no motorists or pedestrians to watch the clattering convoy whip past the bank and mercantile store, and the crows and pigeons had taken wing for the high ground behind this place on the New River.
    John Bordsen, USA TODAY, 27 Oct. 2017
  • Originally a mercantile store, the building dates back to 1899, the same year Jerome was incorporated as a city.
    Andi Berlin, The Arizona Republic, 11 Mar. 2022
  • Chappel DeVall had a mercantile operation with a warehouse and home on the river by 1849.
    Rex Nelson, Arkansas Online, 18 Oct. 2020
  • The elegance of his path-breaking example on screen opened the hearts, minds and wallets of the moviegoing public and tugged at the reluctant, mercantile conscience of the film industry.
    Los Angeles Times, 7 Jan. 2022
  • Scientel chose the location, in part, to be as close as possible to the mercantile exchange data storage site.
    Steve Lord, Aurora Beacon-News, 20 Oct. 2017
  • The entry walkway resembles an Old West town with retro mercantile storefronts lining both sides.
    Pam Kragen, sandiegouniontribune.com, 2 June 2017
  • The historic city center of Bikan, a 10-minute walk from the station, is a time warp to the Edo era, when its namesake river formed an important cornerstone of Japanese mercantile trails; the area is still car-free.
    Time, 17 Jan. 2018
  • The mercantile concept will come at an advantageous time for Lake County, Shannon said.
    Esther Mobley, SFChronicle.com, 18 Aug. 2020
  • But the size and economies of these villages were too modest even to sustain their basic familial and mercantile needs, so the villages would take on collective debt—to pay for fishing nets and supplies, say.
    Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 15 Apr. 2020
  • The Silk Road may be ancient history but to see modern mercantile hustle in full effect, there is nowhere more exciting in Central Asia.
    Rob Crossan, CNN, 5 June 2017
  • Bidders from Spanish and French companies followed them around the hall like schools of mackerel, hacking commands down their phones in a gob-full of mercantile gutturals.
    Matthew Bremner, Slate Magazine, 24 July 2017
  • This is San Juan’s historic theater, dining and mercantile district.
    Fred Swegles, Orange County Register, 2 May 2017
  • And then that eases us into the Age of the Boomers, populated by 50-and-ups who now — sorry, mercantile America — may want more experiences than stuff.
    Patt Morrison, latimes.com, 3 Nov. 2017
  • Below, passengers can glimpse brightly painted riverside mercantile houses and historic port wine lodges on the far bank.
    Paul Ames, CNN, 22 May 2017
  • Neither, the Italian government worries, does Venice. Don’t look now, but Venice, once a great maritime and mercantile power, risks being conquered by day-trippers.
    Jason Horowitz Photographs By Andrew Testa, New York Times, 2 Aug. 2017
  • Hancock is portrayed, at least initially, as a dandy, brought into the conflict only out of mercantile necessity, but George is having none of it.
    Ken Stern, The Hive, 24 Oct. 2017
  • To Virginians, this treaty would have sacrificed the national interest in favor of the mercantile interests of New England and the Atlantic states.
    John Yoo, National Review, 24 Jan. 2020
  • The bar itself is repurposed from an old mercantile building counter found in Pennsylvania and, behind the bar, a brass shelving fixture floats in front of a magnolia mural.
    Allie Morris, Dallas News, 18 Feb. 2020
  • The hourglass, for example, is a relic from maritime, clerical, and mercantile life that was mostly replaced more than 500 years ago by the mechanical clock.
    Ian Bogost, The Atlantic, 5 Sep. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mercantile.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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