# merx
## Latin
### Alternative forms

* marca, mercha, marcha

### Etymology

From Proto-Italic *merks (compare Faliscan 𐌌𐌄𐌓𐌂𐌖𐌉 (mercui, dative), Oscan 𐌌𐌄𐌓𐌉𐌊𐌖𐌉 (merikui, dat.sg.), names of deities), of uncertain etymology. De Vaan relates this word to Mercurius, deriving them both from a root referring to various aspects of economics, which he presumes to have an Etruscan origin.
However, in the 2020s, Nikolaev and Matasović independently proposed Indo-European etymologies for merx. Both derivations assume that the simple -c- in the oblique cases was analogically levelled based on the nominative singular, as all velars merged to *-k- when immediately preceding the nominative singular *-s in Italic.
* Nikolaev reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *merkʷ-, relating merx to Ancient Greek μάρπτω (márptō, “to take hold”) and Tocharian A märk- (“to take away”).
* Matasović instead derives this word from a root *merǵ- (“to divide”), whence also margō (“border”), Proto-Celtic *mrogis, Proto-Germanic *markō, and Persian مرز (marz), the verbal sense of which survives in Hittite 𒈥𒀝𒍣 (mar-ak-zi /⁠marktsi⁠/, “to cut up, separate, divide, distribute”). The connection to Hittite was in fact already suggested by Puhvel (2004). This root *merǵ- may itself be an extension of *mer- (“to divide, apportion, allot”), for which see Latin mereō.

### Pronunciation

* (Classical Latin) IPA: /merks/, [mɛrks̠]
* (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA: /merks/, [mɛrks]

### Noun

merx f (genitive mercis); third declension
* merchandise, commodity
* goods, wares

#### Declension

Third-declension noun (i-stem).

#### Derived terms

* commercium
* mercēs
* mercimōnium
* mercor

#### Descendants

* Italian: merce
* Portuguese: merce
* Sicilian: merci
* ⇒ Catalan: esmerçar
* → Basque: merke

### References

* ↑ De Vaan, Michiel (2008) “merx, -cis”, in Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 7), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, page 376
* ↑ Nikolaev, Alexander (2021) “Etyma Graeca II”, in Indo-European Linguistics and Classical Philology, number 25, Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 953–976
* ↑ Matasović, Ranko (2022 June 30) “Four Latin Etymologies: volgus, laedo, paedor, merx”, in Latina et Graeca‎, volume 2, number 41, →ISSN, retrieved September 18, 2022, pages 7–16
* ↑ Kloekhorst, Alwin (2008) “mārk-$^i$ / mark-”, in Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 5), Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 558–559
* ↑ Puhvel, Jaan (2004) Hittite Etymological Dictionary (Trends in linguistics. Documentation; 22), volume 6, Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter, page 74

### Further reading

* “merx”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
* “merx”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
* merx in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
* Carl Meißner, Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book‎, London: Macmillan and Co. (ambiguous) the stipulated reward for anything: pacta merces alicuius rei (ambiguous) to set out goods for sale: exponere, proponere merces (venales)
* William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “merchant”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.