1. A track; a trail; a way; a path; also, passage; travel; resort. [Obs.] A postern with a blind wicket there was, A common trade to pass through Priam's house. Surrey. Hath tracted forth some salvage beastes trade. Spenser. Or, I'll be buried in the king's highway, Some way of common trade, where subjects' feet May hourly trample on their sovereign's head. Shak.
2. Course; custom; practice; occupation; employment. [Obs.] "The right trade of religion." Udall. There those five sisters had continual trade. Spenser. Long did I love this lady, Long was my travel, long my trade to win her. Massinger. Thy sin's not accidental but a trade. Shak.
3. Business of any kind; matter of mutual consideration; affair; dealing. [Obs.] Have you any further trade with us Shak.
4. Specifically: The act or business of exchanging commodities by barter, or by buying and selling for money; commerce; traffic; barter.
Note: Trade comprehends every species of exchange or dealing, either in the produce of land, in manufactures, in bills, or in money; but it is chiefly used to denote the barter or purchase and sale of goods, wares, and merchandise, either by wholesale or retail. Trade is either foreign or domestic. Foreign trade consists in the exportation and importation of goods, or the exchange of the commodities of different countries. Domestic, or home, trade is the exchange, or buying and selling, of goods within a country. Trade is also by the wholesale, that is, by the package or in large quantities, generally to be sold again, or it is by retail, or in small parcels. The carrying trade is the business of transporting commodities from one country to another, or between places in the same country, by land or water.
5. The business which a person has learned, and which he engages in, for procuring subsistence, or for profit; occupation; especially, mechanical employment as distinguished from the liberal arts, the learned professions, and agriculture; as, we speak of the trade of a smith, of a carpenter, or mason, but not now of the trade of a farmer, or a lawyer, or a physician. Accursed usury was all his trade. Spenser. The homely, slighted, shepherd's trade. Milton. I will instruct thee in my trade. Shak.
6. Instruments of any occupation. [Obs.] The house and household goods, his trade of war. Dryden.
7. A company of men engaged in the same occupation; thus, booksellers and publishers speak of the customs of the trade, and are collectively designated as the trade.
8. pl.
Defn: The trade winds.