mercantile (adj) - of or pertaining to merchants, trade, or business; profit-oriented or related to mercantilism [mur-kuhn-tahyl]
BREAKDOWN: MERC- (trade, market) + -ANT (one who) + -ILE (quality)
mercantilism is commercialism or economic nationalism
See also: Visiting Mercury
“In prosperous times the mercantile classes often realize fortunes, which go far towards securing them against the future; but unfortunately the working classes, though they share in the general prosperity, do not share in it so largely as in the general adversity.” —Thomas Malthus