Word.ws English Dictionary

merchant princes

merchant princes is the plural of merchant prince.

Meaning of merchant prince

Noun

merchant prince (plural merchant princes)

  1. (figuratively, historical) A mercantile plutocrat: a man who wields great de facto political power by virtue of economic assets derived from trade and commerce.
    • The customs and duties paid by each ship, great or small, amount in the whole to 70 or 80 slaves. The king [sc. of Ardrah] has the first choice of goods, whether in the payment of duties, or in exchange for slaves; the hereditary prince the second, the merchant prince the third, the Marbut the...1760, The Modern Part of an Universal History, Vol. XVI, Bk. xvii, Ch. vii, p. 466
  2. (figuratively) A prince among merchants: a wealthy and influential merchant.

Questions about merchant princes

What is merchant princes the plural of?
Merchant princes is the plural of merchant prince.

Words near merchant princes in the dictionary

  1. merchant marines
  2. merchant navies
  3. merchant navy
  4. merchant of death
  5. merchant prince
  6. merchant princes
  7. merchant seaman
  8. merchant seamen
  9. merchant ship
  10. merchant shipping
  11. merchant ships

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: merchant princes (page history and authors); merchant prince (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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