different between commercial vs informercial

English

Etymology

commerce +? -ial. From French commercial (“of, or pertaining to commerce”), from Late Latin commercialis, from Latin commercium.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /k??m????l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /k??m???l/

Noun

commercial (plural commercials)

1. An advertisement in a common media format, usually radio or television.
2. (finance) A commercial trader, as opposed to an individual speculator.
3. (obsolete) A commercial traveller.
   • 1875, George Worsley, Advice to the Young! (page 32)

     I have more than once had to lend a commercial money to pay his fare home; as he had played shell-out and lost the lot.

4. (slang) A male prostitute.
   • 1972, Alfred Eustace Parker, The Berkeley Police Story (page 133)

     Tom said that homosexuals hate “commercials,” male prostitutes, and if the homosexual was drunk and angry, he might have committed murder.

   • 1987, Paul William Mathews, Male Prostitution: Two Monographs (page 39)

     With the commercials there is no intensity of feeling and no later animosity; there is emotional and sexual fakery, but no prolonged post-sexual bargaining. […] Paradoxically these boys dissociate themselves from the commercials, yet engage in prostitution only when they require the money.

Hypernyms

• advertisement

Hyponyms

• infomercial

Derived terms

Translations

Adjective

commercial (comparative more commercial, superlative most commercial)

1. Of or pertaining to commerce.
   • 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars, Chapter I,

     A two minutes' walk brought Warwick--the name he had registered under, and as we shall call him--to the market-house, the central feature of Patesville, from both the commercial and the picturesque points of view.

2. (aviation) Designating an airport that serves passenger and/or cargo flights.
3. (aviation) Designating such an airplane flight.

Translations

Related terms

• commerce
• commercialize
• precommercial

Further reading

• commercial in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• commercial in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Late Latin commerci?lis, from Latin commercium; equivalent to commerce +? -ial

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?.m??.sjal/
• Homophones: commerciale, commerciales

Adjective

commercial (feminine singular commerciale, masculine plural commerciaux, feminine plural commerciales)

1. commercial

Derived terms

Noun

commercial m (plural commerciaux)

1. a salesman, sales representative

Further reading

• “commercial” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Portuguese

Noun

commercial m (plural commerciaes or commerciais)

1. Obsolete spelling of comercial

Adjective

commercial m or f (plural commerciaes or commerciais)

1. Obsolete spelling of comercial

English

Noun

informercial (plural informercials)

1. Alternative spelling of infomercial.