Etymology of Marketing

Where did the word marketing come from?

The word marketing comes from market + -ing.

Its history looks roughly like this:

Marketing originally meant simply buying and selling in a market in the 1560s.
It is derived from the verb market (“to buy or sell”).
Market comes from Middle English and Old French forms ultimately derived from the Latin word mercatus, meaning “market, trade, commerce.”
Mercatus itself comes from Latin merx (“goods, merchandise”).

The modern business meaning—advertising, branding, customer research, sales strategy, and moving products from producers to consumers—didn’t appear until the late 19th century (around 1897).

So, at its root, marketing literally means “the activity of the market.” The word evolved from trading goods in a marketplace to the broader process of creating and selling demand for products and services.

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