merchant

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. One whose occupation is the wholesale purchase and retail sale of goods for profit.
2. n. One who runs a retail business; a shopkeeper.
3. adj. Of or relating to merchants, merchandise, or commercial trade: a merchant guild.
4. adj. Of or relating to the merchant marine: merchant ships.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. One who is engaged in the business of buying commercial commodities and selling them again for the sake of profit; especially, one who buys and sells in quantity or by wholesale. One who buys without selling again, or who sells without having bought, as where one sells products of his own labor, or who buys and sells exclusively articles not the subject of ordinary commerce, or who buys and sells commercial articles on salary and not for profit, is not usually termed a merchant. Those who buy or sell on a commission for others are termed commission-merchants. In the law of bankruptcy, which forbids a discharge to merchants and traders who have not kept proper books of account, the term has a more extended meaning, having been held to include a livery-stable keeper who buys hay and grain and indirectly sells it by boarding horses, but not a broker who speculates in stocks.
2. n. A supercargo; the person in charge of the business affairs of a trading expedition.
3. n. A merchant ship or vessel; a merchantman.
4. n. A shop-keeper or store-keeper.
5. n. 5. A fellow; a chap.
6. Relating to trade or commerce; commercial: as, the law merchant. See law.
7. Pertaining to merchants; belonging to the mercantile class; engaged or used in trade or commerce.
8. To trade; buy or sell; deal; barter; traffic; negotiate.

Wiktionary

1. n. A person who traffics in commodities for profit.
2. n. The owner or operator of a retail business.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. One who traffics on a large scale, especially with foreign countries; a trafficker; a trader.
2. n. A trading vessel; a merchantman.
3. n. One who keeps a store or shop for the sale of goods; a shopkeeper.
4. adj. Of, pertaining to, or employed in, trade or merchandise.
5. v. To be a merchant; to trade.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a businessperson engaged in retail trade