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• synonym
• antonym

• Merchant of Venice, The
  1. a play by William SHAKESPEARE about a man called Antonio who borrows money from SHYLOCK . When Antonio cannot pay back the money, SHYLOCK demands the right to cut out a 'pound of flesh' from Antonio's body. A famous speech from the play, made by the main female character, Portia, begins with the words, "The quality of MERCY is not strained", by which Portia tells SHYLOCK that he cannot be forced to show MERCY (= forgiveness), but that this would be a morally good thing to do.
• Merchant-Ivory
  1. a respected British film company started by the PRODUCER Ismail Merchant (1936- ) and the DIRECTOR James Ivory (1928- ). Many of their films, such as A Room with a View (1983), Howards End (1991), and The Remains of the Day (1992), are based on well-known works of English literature, and they are often about the lives of UPPER CLASS English people in the early 20th century, and about the English class system and its effects on people's behaviour.
• grain merchant (noun)
  1. a merchant who deals in food grains
• law merchant (noun)
  1. law the body of rules applied to commercial transactions; derived from the practices of traders rather than from jurisprudence
• merchant bank (noun)
  1. a bank that provides services for businesses
• merchant banker (noun)
  1. a businessman whose business is merchant banking
• merchant banking (noun)
  1. the business of a merchant bank
• merchant marine (noun)
  1. the crew of a merchant vessel
  2. conveyance provided by the ships belonging to one country or industry
• merchant navy (noun)
  1. all of a country's ships that are used for trade, not war, and the people who work on these ships
• merchant seaman (noun)
  1. a sailor in the merchant navy
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